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Airlock vs Akamai App and API Protector comparison

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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (13th)
Airlock
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
9.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (22nd)
Akamai App and API Protector
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (9th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (4th), Cloud and Data Center Security (10th)
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch - PeerSpot reviewer
Fast and secure deployments simplify operations for government and fintech clients
It is a fast and secure DNS. It is very easy to deploy, and my customers are happy with this tool. Additionally, the CDN performance in Mexico is excellent, providing fast service and tools. It offers reliability during high-traffic periods, ensuring no impact on the environment. It helps my clients avoid using on-premise boxes, simplifying operations as they only use the prices on Cloudflare.
Tiodor Jovovic - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides endless features and can be adapted to every single application that exists in the world
WAF is the most beneficial feature for security posture. Our customers are more than satisfied with the user experience provided by the product. The level of detail of the configuration is the most significant aspect. We can adapt it to every single application that exists in the world. The product helps with the compliance processes.
Bharat Chandra - PeerSpot reviewer
Exceptional support, protects our sites, and provides visibility into traffic
We did a PoC of Akamai and Cloudflare. 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. Other things are good in Akamai. That is why we are using Akamai. Only the captcha part should be implemented.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"When using services like Heroku, Cloudflare is very useful for CNAME flattening. I also use it for their end-to-end SSL with TLS authentication on nginx for securing servers."
"The solution is stable, and the DNS servers are simple to use."
"The simplicity of the overall dashboard makes it a great product for a user like me who has less understanding of the internet than a developer or other more technical people. It gives me peace of mind. I also love the easy customization of the Page Rules."
"The solution automatically detects and responds to certain types of traffic based on geolocation."
"We're using dynamic components to build flexible pages to create and manage Git merge requests for code and reviews."
"Many websites require an SSL certificate because they sell stuff and want SSL. Cloudflare comes with an SSL certificate built in. It's automatic. You sign yourself up for Cloudflare, and an SSL certificate automatically protects your website. You don't necessarily need a certificate if you have a connection between your website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host."
"New and innovative way to protect the client's data."
"Centralized, full-featured DNS."
"Our customers are more than satisfied with the user experience provided by the product."
"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."
"Features like scalability and uptime are most effective."
"It is scalable for DDoS."
"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 Web Application Protector is a good solution that provides basic web application protection."
"It enables us to move faster with new products because we have this layer of protection set up in our infrastructure."
"The product is user-friendly."
"The solution easily identifies, delays, or allows business traffic."
 

Cons

"It should confirm audit findings of the assigned area with auditees to ensure that the audit conclusions are based on an accurate understanding of the issues."
"The tool needs to improve caching of servers. The product needs to include PFX certificate as well."
"If they improve on the placement of their data centers, it would be better. I'm living in a remote area. I would like to connect to them without any kind of lag."
"Cloudflare should add more documentation and pricing to the cloud version."
"The solution could work at being less expensive. It costs a lot to use it."
"The product needs to improve its automation."
"The documentation could improve for Cloudflare DNS."
"The solution could use more analytics on the backend to give us more insights into everything. More reports would be helpful."
"The tool must be simplified."
"It could have better analytics and reporting visibility in the OEM console."
"I do not see any area for improvement. Akamai is already maintaining its own databases for the security concerns, vulnerabilities, and attacks that are there. If anything, they should have a solution in the infrastructure security area as well. They should not be only in cloud cybersecurity; they should also be in infrastructure security."
"The solution could offer even more integrations."
"The product should provide a secure NTP."
"Akamai App and API Protector is very new to me, so I do not have any insights on improvement areas for the product. However, when we ask for some help, it can take some time. We understand that the job is done by professionals, but if that time can be reduced, it would be great."
"There are some issues with pushing configurations across a network. It still takes about 20 minutes and that means to retract it's another 20 minutes."
"A lot of piracy happens in India and other countries. If there is a product for protection from piracy, it would be great. For example, there are multiple hackers that hack your event, and there are some channels that pirate and publish the event on some other website. We protect our streaming through DRM and different technologies. We are also protecting the website, but hacking is still happening. If they can work on protecting from piracy, it would be great."
"It would be better if there weren't any issues with latency. We had latency issues, but I think they are all solved now."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is expensive."
"I think the pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."
"A free version of the solution is available."
"The product's pricing is cheap."
"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."
"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."
"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."
"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."
"The tool is cheap."
"Cost depends on the volume of traffic."
"The product’s price is high."
"One reason not all people use Akamai is that it is a little bit more expensive than some other providers."
"Akamai is very expensive."
"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."
"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."
"The solution is not 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."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
10%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Performing Arts
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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...
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...
What do you like most about Cloudflare?
Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.
What do you like most about Airlock?
Our customers are more than satisfied with the user experience provided by the product.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Airlock?
The tool is cheap. We are protecting very sensitive portals. We didn't have a single incident for the last 15 years.
What needs improvement with Airlock?
The tool must be simplified. However, if it is simplified, it will lose its competitive edge. The solution requires a...
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...
What needs improvement with Akamai Web Application Protector?
It could have better analytics and reporting visibility in the OEM console.
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
Airlock Suite
Akamai Web Application Protector, Akamai Kona Site Defender, Akamai Kona DDoS Defender
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.
Raiffeisen, SGKB, Generali, Visana
Douglas Omaha Technology Commission, ZALORA, PrintPlanet
Find out what your peers are saying about F5, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF). Updated: August 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.