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Akamai App and API Protector vs Prolexic comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Akamai App and API Protector
Ranking in Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (8th), Cloud and Data Center Security (10th)
Prolexic
Ranking in Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection
15th
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection category, the mindshare of Akamai App and API Protector is 4.3%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Prolexic is 3.1%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection
 

Featured Reviews

Deepesh  Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 9, 2024
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.
ÖS
Sep 5, 2018
Eliminated DDOS attacks, provides excellent mitigation service
Always-on DDOS protection/mitigation.  We suffered from DDOS attacks and needed a fast mitigation solution. We selected Prolexic routed through GRE tunnels to two different scrubbing centers. This was possible since we own our IPv4 blocks and have our own AS number from RIPE We have suffered from…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"They have a fantastic tool for analyzing and viewing your traffic."
"Traffic filtering and WAF are valuable."
"All the solution's features are very good."
"The solution can scale extremely well."
"We are getting security for each and every API."
"The CDN and the WAF features are the best."
"The product has a good user interface."
"The dashboard is the most interesting feature of the Akamai portal where you can have a detailed analysis of all the attacks that are happening. You can drill down an issue and see exactly what is happening, who are the bad guys attacking your website, and how Akamai is protecting the website. That is the most valuable feature."
"The solution does not have hardware or maintenance requirements and is very easy to scale."
 

Cons

"One thing I asked them is to integrate the API discovery product that they have and push that data into Akamai App and API Protector so that we do not have two types of reviews to identify the type of traffic. We already know the APIs that are frequently getting used, so analysis becomes easier. We can integrate both products and use them."
"One area where Akamai can improve is the captcha part. Cloudflare provides a captcha if there are a certain number of threats. For example, I can assign that if there are 10 requests within a second from a single IP, it should send a captcha to the user. The user should fill in the captcha, and only after that, the user should be able to access our website. This captcha feature should be built into Bot Manager. I love this captcha feature of Cloudflare."
"We are experimenting with EdgeWorkers to write our own code at the Edge level. It could grow to be much better."
"Customer support has room for improvement."
"They are already very flexible, but room for improvement is there. Reports generation could be better and should be improved."
"In terms of precedence of Akamai rules, the last one is implemented. That is the one that is operational. If two rules contradict, the last one is implemented. We had a clash, but it was really tough to find that out. I would like to have a rulebook because, in their architecture documentation, it is not mentioned anywhere that if two rules clash, the last one works, and if it does not work, then what to do. This is something we were debating today with their tech support. With AWS, we get documents for the issues so that they do not occur in the future. Akamai's support and knowledge base needs to be improved."
"Support and the pricing need to improve."
"The performance of the cloud monitoring tool is low."
"The solution needs additional product options for small and medium enterprises."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is no license at all for Akamai. They are going to charge us only for the usage."
"The product’s price is high."
"Cost depends on the volume of traffic."
"Akamai is very expensive."
"Based on the billing discussions in the DevOps team, Akamai's cost does not seem to be a major thing. However, LOE is an issue. When it comes to support, we know that even all the competitors do this. For a 30-minute issue, they give us a LOE of one or two hours. That is a basic practice, but that is something we worry about."
"If you want quality, you have to pay the price. Its price is fair. Their account managers are also very helpful. They help you a lot with pricing even though they are working with Akamai."
"It's more expensive than others, but the ROI is good for large-scale infrastructure."
"One reason not all people use Akamai is that it is a little bit more expensive than some other providers."
"The pricing is a pay-as-you-go model that is charged by the hour."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
5%
Educational Organization
30%
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance 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.
Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GRE tunnels. We have decreased site load times on Mobile 3G from 8 to 1,6 seconds ...
What needs improvement with Akamai Prolexic Routed?
The solution needs additional product options for small and medium enterprises. Pricing should be more transparent and visible on the website. Currently, we need to request pricing through an email...
What is your primary use case for Akamai Prolexic Routed?
Our company uses the solution to provide customized infrastructure and cloud services to our customers. We currently have five to ten customers using the solution. Our model is to continue to move ...
 

Also Known As

Akamai Web Application Protector, Akamai Kona Site Defender, Akamai Kona DDoS Defender
Akamai Prolexic Routed
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Douglas Omaha Technology Commission, ZALORA, PrintPlanet
Fidor Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai App and API Protector vs. Prolexic and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.