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Akamai App and API Protector vs F5 Shape Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Scalability Issues

No sentiment score available
Akamai App and API Protector excels in scalability, seamlessly handling extensive user demands and large-scale deployments with stability.
No sentiment score available
 

Valuable Features

Sentiment score
9.0
Akamai App and API Protector delivers scalable security, ease of use, and cost-effective protection with advanced features like DDoS defense.
No sentiment score available
 

Room For Improvement

Sentiment score
6.3
Akamai App and API Protector needs enhancements in flexibility, UI, customer support, documentation, and advanced protection features.
No sentiment score available
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
3.5
Customer service is excellent, while technical support has mixed reviews with praise for expertise but needs improved availability.
No sentiment score available
 

Stability Issues

No sentiment score available
Akamai App and API Protector is highly stable and reliable, with no reported outages or issues over years of use.
No sentiment score available
 

Setup Cost

Sentiment score
3.8
Akamai App and API Protector is expensive yet considered worth the cost by large enterprises for its quality services.
No sentiment score available
 

Categories and Ranking

Akamai App and API Protector
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (8th), Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection (4th), Cloud and Data Center Security (10th)
F5 Shape Security
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Fraud Detection and Prevention (7th), Bot Management (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Services solutions, they serve different purposes. Akamai App and API Protector is designed for Web Application Firewall (WAF) and holds a mindshare of 4.0%, down 4.4% compared to last year.
F5 Shape Security, on the other hand, focuses on Fraud Detection and Prevention, holds 1.9% mindshare, down 4.0% since last year.
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
Fraud Detection and Prevention
 

Featured Reviews

Deepesh  Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Bot Manager and different features to manage threats
As a product, it has good capabilities, including professional support. However, it's risky for us to rely on AI for real-time traffic management. We use in-house analytics but avoid automatic actions due to their high impact. For example, I live in a developing country. Everyone has different types of phones, apps, and everything else. So, if someone is using a legacy phone, that is still a use case here. If AI decides that this is an end-of-life phone or end-of-life Android operating system, it starts blocking that traffic. We may potentially lose millions or probably thousands and hundreds of thousands of hits per second. Everything is all about how well we serve payments because we're into payments. So, AI is used for analytics but not for real-time decisions. We can't afford to block traffic based on AI models due to the variety of devices and operating systems our users have.
Nikolay Dimitrov - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to configure and blocks bot attacks for web users
The solution is deployed on the F5 cloud. The solution's real-time analytics help you see what has been blocked. It helps to see whether the attack category was an automation attack or a fake browser. F5 Shape Security has a normal dashboard. We are doing F5 Shape Security migrations for 30 customers. F5 Shape Security uses Javascript. For a lot of competitors, the Javascript can be reverse-engineered by attackers to bypass the protection. F5 Shape Security has machine learning authentication of the Java script. If you had hacked it, the encryption would have been changed. It's really hard for attackers to reverse engineer the F5 Shape Security JavaScript. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
32%
Healthcare Company
11%
Retailer
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Akamai Web Application Protector?
The price is higher than others. It could be about 80% to 70% more expensive than other tools. So, it’s not just a slight difference.
What needs improvement with Akamai Web Application Protector?
It could have better analytics and reporting visibility in the OEM console.
What makes automation distinct as an attack vector?
An aspect that sets automation apart as an attack vector is its ability to mimic legitimate user behavior and evade traditional security measures. Automated attacks can simulate human-like interact...
How does F5 Shape Security’s system work? What are its components?
One key component is the Shape Defense Engine. It sends telemetry to the Shape AI Cloud, a highly secure data system where machine learning algorithms analyze the data to detect patterns of automat...
Can F5 Shape Security protect both our web and mobile applications? Are there any specific features for mobile app protection?
F5 Shape Security can protect web apps as well. It’s a bit complicated, but goes something like this: The platform employs a JavaScript-based collection of client signals to gather data on user beh...
 

Also Known As

Akamai Web Application Protector, Akamai Kona Site Defender, Akamai Kona DDoS Defender
Shape Security
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Douglas Omaha Technology Commission, ZALORA, PrintPlanet
Wells Fargo, Loblaw, JetBlue, Zoosk
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, F5 and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF). Updated: November 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.