Akamai App and API Protector vs Prolexic comparison

Akamai App and API Protector and Prolexic are both solutions in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category. Akamai App and API Protector is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.0, while Prolexic is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.0. Akamai App and API Protector holds a 4.5% mindshare in DDOS, compared to Prolexic’s 2.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Akamai App and API Protector users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Prolexic users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Prolexic and Akamai App and API Protector compete directly in cloud security, each with unique strengths. Prolexic is often favored for its affordability and responsive customer service, whereas Akamai is recognized for its advanced features, making it a preferred choice for functionality-focused users.

Features: Prolexic offers strong DDoS protection, efficient handling of large-scale attacks, and thorough traffic analysis. Akamai App and API Protector provides robust application-layer security, real-time analytics, and automated threat detection, positioning it as a superior option for comprehensive, feature-rich protection.

Room for Improvement: Prolexic could enhance scalability and user interface intuitiveness, while its technical documentation can be expanded. Akamai could offer simpler deployment, reduce costs, and streamline customer support processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Prolexic is praised for easy deployment and reliable customer service, facilitating smooth integration. Akamai, with its advanced functionalities, might present a more complex deployment but compensates with thorough documentation and support services.

Pricing and ROI: Prolexic is noted for its competitive pricing and favorable ROI for cost-conscious businesses. Akamai, despite a higher initial cost, offers extensive protection that may validate the investment over time for those seeking advanced security capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed Akamai App and API Protector vs. Prolexic Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Akamai App and API Protector vs. Prolexic

April 2026

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Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 14.0%, down from 19.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai App and API Protector is 4.5%, up from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Prolexic is 2.6%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cloudflare	14.0%
Akamai App and API Protector	4.5%
Prolexic	2.6%
Other	78.9%

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

Featured Reviews

M.A. Faisal

General Manager at bKash Limited

Advanced protection has secured critical web workloads and provides clear traffic visibility

From a security perspective, there remains a security loophole, as some browsers in the market can bypass the Turnstile solution, which requires approximately 40 seconds to do so. From a performance perspective, this is acceptable. We also tried Google reCAPTCHA, and that can also be bypassed. From a security perspective, I would say neither solution is completely secured. Regarding uptime, we have faced a couple of incidents due to Cloudflare in recent years, so I cannot say we receive 100% uptime for our region. We sometimes face challenges, including downtime and other issues. As a result, we are not receiving 100% uptime from Cloudflare's solution. Since most of our customers are in this region, we need alternatives. We need something more competitive than Cloudflare. Unfortunately, in Bangladesh, Cloudflare has three points of presence already, and we cannot find any other solution provider in Bangladesh as an alternative, which presents another challenge. Competitor solutions have more attack signatures, which ensure better security compared to Cloudflare's predefined configurations. Customers do not have options to modify any configuration parameters in Cloudflare, whereas other competitor solutions, such as F5 Distributed Cloud, allow customers to tune configurations according to their requirements. Cloudflare could improve in this area. Additionally, regarding visibility, Cloudflare has static visibility, but they could adopt dynamic graph features for their customers.

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Gavin Pinho

Privacy & Risk Management Vice President, Information Security at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees

Has provided strong protection against evolving threats but still needs support for configuration fine-tuning

The standout features of Akamai App and API Protector are rooted in it being the Web Application Firewall, where all traffic gets scanned, including the implementation of web firewall rules, and after this phase, traffic proceeds through the BMP, which is Bot Management. Akamai App and API Protector exceeds expectations in terms of AI capabilities, and it genuinely combines a plethora of advanced features. The area in which Akamai excels compared to other competitors with a WAF is in threat intelligence, as threats continually evolve, requiring ongoing updates to backend algorithms to effectively capture smart bots, and Akamai's commitment in that regard is backed by an excellent team, while other providers are still catching up.

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Gavin Pinho

Privacy & Risk Management Vice President, Information Security at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees

Has faced challenges with bot detection while benefiting from strong threat monitoring and compliance support

Akamai's most valuable features include being industry recognized and PCI compliant, which is really great; their cloud is PCI compliant, and having a vendor that is PCI certified is crucial for organizations focused on PCI compliance. We utilize the real-time monitoring of the solution. Real-time monitoring helps us identify network vulnerabilities by allowing us to see a spike in traffic and understand the traffic levels compared to this time last month or last week. If we notice a sudden increase, we investigate further to determine if it indicates a DDoS attack or a card testing situation. In terms of threat detection capabilities, they are very good because Akamai has a SOC service that we have tapped into for active threat detection and threat hunting, and they monitor everything carefully 24/7. Scrubbing is done by Akamai as a backend service, and we utilize their SOC, which is a service that you pay additional fees for, allowing us to have our queries prioritized. Prolexic features help maintain business continuity during high-volume attacks by having built-in threat detection capabilities in its bot detection and other functionalities, as attacks usually occur through intelligent bots trying to infiltrate the system.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very good at mitigating threats."

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is that it has a free version. They give us the free version with the anti-DDoS features and also the load balancing solution."

"The web application firewall brought us good security and a view of the accesses/blocks of the entire domain and subdomain that were accessed both by region (country) and IPs."

"I didn’t have to pay anything for better website security and reduced server load."

"Smaller businesses have seen great ROI due to the low investment and strong performance."

"The API gives us the ability to remote control our DNS settings."

"The solution automatically detects and responds to certain types of traffic based on geolocation."

"The solution provides good load balancing and protection against DDoS attacks."

More Cloudflare pros

"The CDN and the WAF features are the best in this solution."

"Akamai Web Application Protector is exceptionally stable; after all, it is Akami."

"The solution can scale extremely well."

"The most valuable feature is the custom rules feature. This is because many of our customers require a lot of custom rules. Because it's a very customized project for our customers, I think they have the best of everything already."

"Akamai is a very reliable provider and a very safe bet that will suit most environments' needs."

"The most valuable feature is the DDoS protection, which is the main reason we got it."

"Traffic filtering and WAF are valuable."

"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."

More Akamai App and API Protector pros

"Akamai's most valuable features include being industry recognized and PCI compliant, which is really great; their cloud is PCI compliant, and having a vendor that is PCI certified is crucial for organizations focused on PCI compliance."

"The solution does not have hardware or maintenance requirements and is very easy to scale."

"Prolexic technical support is second to none."

"The solution does not have hardware or maintenance requirements and is very easy to scale."

"The support from Akamai is great, and they provide excellent information and mitigation services."

"They've scrubbed DDoS traffic that was blasting us offline, thus allowing legitimate traffic through and letting our service return online."

Cons

"Cloudflare doesn't have a reverse lookup. We can only do a DNS lookup to get the IP address from the hostname. It doesn't work if you want to look up the hostname from an IPA address."

"They lack a good way to manage DNS as a company, since everything is relegated to single account logins until you get to the higher levels. They have come out with a paid feature to remedy this, but I have not had a chance to fully review it yet to know if it fixes the access problem."

"One area of improvement is in the Access Rules. Hypothetically, if we wanted to block or challenge traffic outside of the United States, the only way to currently do that (as far as I know) is to enter every single country outside of the United States. That could be a labor intensive job. A solution could be to enable users to create a rule where traffic is only allowed within a certain country."

"The analytics, basically the dashboard, doesn't have much to it."

"Integration involving API with other products could be more user-friendly."

"If they improve on the placement of their data centers, it would be better."

"Although I think it's quite good, it doesn't provide me with all the features I would expect to have if I were using Imperva."

"It would be beneficial for us if Cloudflare could offer a scrubbing solution. This would involve taking a snapshot of my website and keeping it live during a DDoS attack, ensuring uninterrupted service for our users. DDoS attacks are typically short in duration, and having Cloudflare maintain the site's availability from its secure network would enhance the overall user experience. I would appreciate it if Cloudflare could consider implementing this feature. Many organizations already utilize similar capabilities in their CDN platforms, where a static snapshot of the web page is displayed during DDoS attacks. In terms of features, Cloudflare needs to enhance its resilience and stay more focused on adopting new technologies. For instance, solutions like F5 XC Box, Access Solution, and Distributed Cloud Solution have impressive features, and Cloudflare should strive to match and exceed those capabilities. There's a need for improvement in areas like AI-based DDoS attacks and Layer 7 WAF features. Cloudflare should prioritize enhancements in areas such as behavioral DDoS and protection against SQL injection attacks, considering the prevalent trend of public exposure to the internet for business reasons. Overall, Cloudflare needs to invest more in advancing its feature set."

More Cloudflare cons

"The custom rules were difficult to use."

"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."

"Could integrate more features for each security."

"We are experimenting with EdgeWorkers to write our own code at the Edge level. It could grow to be much better."

"They are already very flexible, but room for improvement is there. Reports generation could be better and should be improved."

"They should allow for multiple security configurations in one account which will enhance the scalability."

"The WAF features definitely have a lot of room for improvement. A lot of the WAF is really basic. For some products or some of our solutions, we need to run a second layer of more advanced WAF. If it had better layer seven protection then we would not need a second WAF."

"It would be better if there weren't any issues with latency. We had latency issues, but I think they are all solved now."

More Akamai App and API Protector cons

"The web portal for checking status and traffic needs improvements."

"The solution needs additional product options for small and medium enterprises."

"The reports provided don’t give detailed information about DDoS mitigations, bandwidth utilization, etc."

"In bot management, there are times when attackers find ways to bypass Akamai, which is a continuously evolving challenge."

"It's expensive, though."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."

"The solution has many features but there are ones that you need to pay for. Sometimes you have to find out which is available for free and which you have to pay for."

"A free version of the solution is available."

"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."

"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."

"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."

"In terms of licensing costs, we don't pay for licensing for Cloudflare. We only establish communication, then for peering, Cloudflare takes care of the cross-connection in different data centers."

"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"The product is expensive, but it is worth the money."

"There is no license at all for Akamai. They are going to charge us only for the usage."

"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."

"One reason not all people use Akamai is that it is a little bit more expensive than some other providers."

"Akamai is very expensive."

"The price they are offering is quite reasonable for premium customers, but it's very expensive if you're a small and medium-sized enterprises."

"The product’s price is high."

"The solution is not expensive."

More Akamai App and API Protector pricing and cost advice

"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

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

18%

Comms Service Provider

Performing Arts

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

29%

Comms Service Provider

17%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	26

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	18

No data available

Questions from the Community

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 GR...

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Which would you choose - Cloudflare DNS or Quad9?

Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare?

The tool's pricing is moderate. I rate the product’s pricing a five out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expens...

See all answers

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 sl...

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What needs improvement with Akamai Web Application Protector?

There are no significant areas for improvement on the WAF side or for Akamai App and API Protector solution; they are...

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What is your primary use case for Akamai Web Application Protector?

The main use case for Akamai App and API Protector is serving as the WAF, Web Application Firewall.

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What needs improvement with Akamai Prolexic Routed?

For the DDoS protection, I don't see any areas for improvement because they are pretty solid there, though in bot man...

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What is your primary use case for Akamai Prolexic Routed?

The main use case for DDoS protection is to mitigate risks, and there are multiple ways Akamai provides DDoS protecti...

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What advice do you have for others considering Akamai Prolexic Routed?

We have a couple of products, including DDoS protection, WAF, and Bot Manager. There are two ways Akamai does DDoS pr...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 39% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

Fastly vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

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Radware Cloud WAF Service vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 5% of the time

AWS WAF vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 4% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 4% of the time

AWS Shield vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 4% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 4% of the time

More Akamai App and API Protector Competitors

StackPath DDoS Protection vs Prolexic

Compared 9% of the time

Radware DDoS vs Prolexic

Compared 9% of the time

Cloudflare One vs Prolexic

Compared 8% of the time

Lumen DDoS Mitigation vs Prolexic

Compared 8% of the time

Arbor DDoS vs Prolexic

Compared 7% of the time

More Prolexic Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

May 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Akamai App and API Protector

May 2026

Download Akamai App and API Protector product report

Buyer's Guide

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

April 2026

Download Prolexic product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

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

Akamai Prolexic Routed

Overview

Cloudflare enhances web performance and security with features like CDN caching and DDoS mitigation while providing easy DNS management and intuitive setup through its user-friendly dashboard.

Cloudflare is recognized for its comprehensive web security and performance solutions. Speed improvements are achieved through caching mechanisms and DDoS protection, combining ease of DNS management with flexible page rules. The robust analytics and threat insight tools provide valuable data, assisted by a user-friendly dashboard allowing quick setup and configuration. An API offers dynamic DNS settings ensuring low latency and high performance across the globe.

What are Cloudflare's key features?

CDN Caching: Enhances website speed through content delivery network caching.
Web Application Firewall: Protects websites from online threats.
DDoS Mitigation: Shields against distributed denial-of-service attacks.
DNS Management: Offers easy-to-use and flexible domain management.
SSL Certificates: Ensures secure connections between users and servers.
Analytics: Provides insights with robust analytics tools.

What benefits and ROI should users evaluate?

Enhanced Security: Strengthening web security with DDoS and firewall protection.
Speed Improvement: Faster content delivery with CDN caching.
Operational Simplicity: Simplifies website optimization through a user-friendly interface.
Scalable Solutions: Scales with global reach, lowering latency for improved performance.
Cost Efficiency: Offers layers of valuable functionality with pricing options.

Cloudflare finds utility across industries for DNS management and defense mechanisms. Its content delivery network assures fast content distribution and fortified security. Businesses integrate features like web application firewalls, load balancing, end-to-end SSL, and zero trust to protect websites from cyber threats while ensuring resilience and reliable performance.

Cloudflare

Akamai App and API Protector provides website security by preventing DDoS attacks, acting as an application firewall, managing content delivery, and monitoring APIs. It adapts to threat profiles and is used for fast media delivery and identifying malicious activities.

Akamai App and API Protector offers strong protection, adaptable security features, and efficient traffic management. Its WAF blocks IP addresses and country-specific threats while preventing SQL injections. Companies utilize it for scalable CDN services and comprehensive traffic analysis. Known for its cost-effectiveness and user-friendly dashboard, this protector stands out for its customizable rules and technical support. Users also highlight the ease of integration and detailed attack insights available through its advanced dashboard.

What are the key features of Akamai App and API Protector?

DDoS Protection: Strong defense against Distributed Denial of Service attacks.
Scalable CDN: Manages content delivery efficiently under high traffic loads.
WAF Capabilities: Blocks specific IPs and countries, prevents SQL injections.
Traffic Filtering: Analyzes and controls incoming requests to maintain security.
Adaptive Stream Delivery: Adjusts content delivery to meet bandwidth needs.

What benefits should users expect?

Cost-Effectiveness: Provides robust security tools at a competitive price.
Enhanced Security: Comprehensive protection against cyber threats.
Scalability: Easily handles increasing traffic and data loads.
Ease of Integration: Simple integration with existing systems.
Insightful Analytics: Offers data-driven insights into traffic and attack patterns.

In media, Akamai App and API Protector ensures smooth streaming by handling high bandwidth demands. E-commerce companies use it to guard against fraud and data breaches. Financial sectors rely on its ability to protect sensitive transactions. Implementations in healthcare focus on safeguarding patient data while maintaining compliance with regulations.

Akamai

Prolexic provides industry-leading DDoS protection, ensuring businesses maintain secure and uninterrupted connectivity. It offers robust defense mechanisms designed to mitigate cyber threats effectively, allowing enterprises to focus on their core operations with confidence.

Prolexic delivers a comprehensive suite of defenses against distributed denial-of-service attacks. Leveraging a global network, it quickly mitigates threats before they affect your networks. The rapid integration and real-time threat analytics facilitate swift, intelligent responses to protect infrastructure from both sophisticated and high-volume attacks. With an emphasis on scalability and reliability, Prolexic addresses the security demands of modern enterprises, minimizing downtime and potential revenue loss.

What are the key features of Prolexic?

Global Threat Intelligence: Provides up-to-date insights into emerging threats.
Customizable Protection: Offers tailored configurations to meet specific needs.
24/7 Monitoring: Ensures constant vigilance and rapid response to incidents.
Traffic Scrubbing: Filters malicious traffic while allowing legitimate traffic through.
Real-Time Reporting: Delivers actionable insights on threat activity and trends.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Reduced Downtime: Minimizes disruptions to maintain productivity and service delivery.
Enhanced Security: Strengthens defenses against cyber threats to protect critical assets.
Cost Efficiency: Lowers potential financial impact of attacks by preventing service outages.
Scalability: Adapts to the evolving needs of growing businesses, ensuring continuous protection.
Ease of Integration: Seamlessly fits into existing networks to streamline implementation.

In industries like finance and e-commerce, Prolexic is crucial due to high threat levels. Financial services leverage its protection to secure sensitive data and ensure transaction integrity, while e-commerce platforms benefit from uninterrupted service during traffic peaks, preserving user experience and transaction volumes.

Akamai

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.

Douglas Omaha Technology Commission, ZALORA, PrintPlanet

Fidor Bank

Buyer's Guide

Akamai App and API Protector vs. Prolexic

April 2026

Free Report: Akamai App and API Protector vs. Prolexic

Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai App and API Protector vs. Prolexic and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.

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