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Akamai vs Imperva DDoS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 31, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Akamai
Ranking in CDN
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Imperva DDoS
Ranking in CDN
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (21st), Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Akamai is 15.7%, up from 15.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Imperva DDoS is 6.6%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CDN
 

Featured Reviews

XYX ABC - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers great enterprise support, ideal for solutions requiring high scalability and seamless integration with AWS infrastructure
For Akamai, it is definitely one of the best tools out there. However, there are challenges with how their approach is designed for large enterprises. While it's great for solutions with high scalability, like global e-commerce, it's not really built for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). It has too many options and can be complex for SMBs to utilize. That's the biggest challenge we faced when migrating to Akamai from other solutions, like Cloudflare. It can be difficult to migrate between platforms. Due to its great features but high activation thresholds. So, while it's a powerful tool, it has limitations for some implementations. It was difficult to migrate from and to Akamai. It is challenging when we are building a website.
DerrickAkankwasa - PeerSpot reviewer
Provide DDoS protection and better security at effective rate
It is expanding its number of data centers for scrubbing traffic. Currently, there is only one POP for cleaning in South Africa. They might add another POP in North Africa, possibly in Nigeria or Egypt. Latency concerns customers, especially in regions like East and West Africa, where traffic has to travel to South Africa before returning. Increasing the number of POPs across the continent would help address these latency issues and improve overall service. While the platform is already quite strong, there’s always room for improvement, especially in keeping up with emerging trends and new types of attacks. Enhancing security capabilities could be beneficial. Integrating more advanced AI features could significantly improve its effectiveness and help customers leverage these tools more effectively. It would be great to see more focus on AI integration to handle and analyze data more efficiently.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Akamai provides low-latency throughput."
"With 300 servers deployed worldwide, it's highly scalable and is the best web application firewall on the market."
"The initial setup is simple, especially for SaaS solutions."
"The solution is very sustainable and flexible."
"The most valuable feature of Akamai is its ease of use and simple integration. Additionally, the solution has new aspects added to it regularly."
"If an attacker conducts an attack, we can check what query he is running and whether he wants to see our password or any other files."
"It's a scalable and reliable solution."
"As of now, the best thing about Akamai is WAF, and though CDN is a good feature, it comes in second place when compared to WAF. I am very impressed with the WAF offered by Akamai."
"The solution's most valuable aspect is that it is easy to configure."
"Incapsula takes care of the CDN infrastructure and bandwidth volume, providing several enterprise "load balancing" features."
"Setup was straightforward, very simple. I only entered the domain and Incapsula returned the DNS data that I needed to change for the protection to be configured."
"Imperva DDoS helps us automate production. The client had specific requirements for a cloud project in the financial sector."
"On the real time, you can see live traffic, which is flowing into our website."
"It is a stable solution."
"The solution is very good at intercepting traffic before it gets to our data centers."
"Imperva DDoS is fairly stable, and its availability is quite high."
 

Cons

"The product's scalability can be improved since certain shortcomings regarding the security part of the solution currently exist."
"While it's great for solutions with high scalability, like global e-commerce, it's not really built for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). It has too many options and can be complex for SMBs to utilize."
"Akamai's configuration part is an area of concern where improvements are required to make the process easy."
"Akamai could improve by providing its own cloud services. We have to use third-party cloud services at this time, such as Amazon AWS. The offering becomes a lot easier for an SMB if everything was in one single platform to be used for the services."
"I'd like to see improvements in log files and data visualizations within the interface."
"Caching strategy is an area with certain shortcomings in the solution where improvements are required."
"Akamai should improve its integrations."
"I'd like to see more Web 3.0 and IoT solutions."
"The solution needs to improve Integration with third parties for their on-prem deployment models. The integration is not that good yet."
"The solution should integrate with something that looks at continuous security management."
"Its price could be improved. It is quite expensive. It will be good if we could export the configuration. Currently, to control the configuration, we need to go to each website, which is not very convenient."
"It needs to be improved every time there are new attacks."
"The product could use a broader scope in the area of policies."
"A limited tool if you're looking to customize."
"Users would benefit from better documentation. There is official documentation, but sometimes we need more detail. We have some use cases that are not so run of the mill. It would be great if there was a knowledge base that we could go to for more answers."
"It would be better if we were able to manage and apply changes to multiple websites/web applications, and search WAF logs for multiple websites, via the Incapsula dashboard."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing is based on bandwidth."
"The price of the solution depends upon its usage."
"The pricing of Akamai is moderate, in my opinion. My company makes yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to Akamai. There are no additional costs besides the licensing costs for the solution."
"The solution can be one of the more expensive options, reflecting their established market position."
"From the resource component, it's very costly, and Akamai's charges are also high. So, any organization with a high-tech budget can definitely afford it, but companies with 10-15% of their revenue as a technical budget probably won't be able to. That's where they have a lot of room for improvement if they want to onboard those early users."
"It is an expensive product. The licensing costs for the solution are based on the usage. If we need premium support, we need to buy it from Akamai."
"Price-wise, I find Akamai's pricing model's inclination to be more towards the expensive side of the spectrum, though I can't say that it is a very expensive product."
"Quite high in price, but equivalent to other enterprise products on the market"
"The data packages are higher than our needs so we end up paying for data that we don't use."
"We are satisfied with the pricing."
"​Although the pricing can be a little high, it is worth the protection and security that it offers.​"
"It is a very expensive solution. The price is very high. A lot of customers tell us that they would love to use Imperva more. I have some customers who have 50 websites, but they have only 10 websites on Imperva because of the price. They would love to have all their websites running through Imperva, but they can't. They have to choose the more critical websites to protect because the price is very high. It is a very good product, but it is too expensive. If you buy a plan for 20 megabytes and you don't consume all of your 20 megabytes, it is okay, but if you consume more, you are charged for the superior traffic."
"The cost is somewhere around $10,000 a site. For every site, you pay individually. For every DNS entry, you have you pay."
"For enterprise contracts you will be in touch with a dedicated account manager who will guide you regarding licensing."
"It is expensive."
"Varies depending on the needs of the customer."
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Comparison Review

it_user69348 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 17, 2013
Akamai vs. CloudFlare – Simple Stats
In the world of CDNs Akamai is the incumbent 500 pound gorilla, no question. They have a HUGE global presence, super solid technology and networks, and have the most experience with large enterprise clients. However, now there other strong players in the CDN market. One of the most…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
27%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Akamai?
The most valuable feature in managing web traffic has been the ability to handle vertical scaling effectively.
What needs improvement with Akamai?
Costing-wise and integration with other tools need improvement, especially API security.
What is your primary use case for Akamai?
We monitor all the traffic which is coming from the Internet to our environment through the Akamai CDN.
What do you like most about Imperva Incapsula?
We use Imperva DDoS to stop DDoS attacks and reduce the amount of unwanted queries against web services or web scraping.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Imperva DDoS?
The pricing is rated a ten on a scale where ten is very expensive. The solution is only cloud-based and does not provide on-premises services.
What needs improvement with Imperva DDoS?
Pricing can be improved, as it is quite expensive. Additionally, support response times for emails can sometimes be delayed, which is an area that could use improvement.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Imperva Incapsula
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Bank of America, Capital One, Cisco, Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines, Disney, Ebay, Facebook, Google, Home Depot, HP, IBM, Intel, JPMorgan Chase, LinkedIn, McDonald's, Microsoft, Netflix, Nike, Oracle, PayPal, Pinterest, Qualcomm, Rakuten, SAP, Spotify, Tesla, Toyota, Visa, Walmart, WeWork
Hitachi, BNZ, Bitstamp, Moz, InnoGames, BTCChina, Wix, LivePerson, Zillow and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai vs. Imperva DDoS and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.