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Akamai API Security vs Imperva Application Security Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 22, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.0
Akamai API Security enhances visibility, reduces risk, and saves time by uncovering undocumented APIs and centralizing information access.
Sentiment score
6.0
Imperva Application Security Platform offers substantial ROI for frequent attack targets, aiding compliance and cost-efficient protection.
Getting everything from one single portal without anyone's interference saved us a lot of money, time, and frustration.
Incident Manager at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The discovery of previously undocumented APIs reduced attack surface blind spots.
Consulting Systems Engineer at Boomslang Tech
I have seen a return on investment, and the main thing is the time saved, allowing our employees to focus on other priority work.
Co-Founder at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
They know how much money they are losing while the system is down, so by increasing the possibility of not having a down website or web application, return on investment can be calculated easily.
Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
Regarding return on investment, ROI, I can say it is noticeable with Imperva Application Security Platform.
Senior Presales Consultant at Techlab security
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.6
Akamai API Security support is efficient and reliable, receiving excellent user ratings despite its high cost.
Sentiment score
6.9
Imperva's customer service is responsive and helpful, though some experience delays and require escalation for complex issues.
I would rate the customer support a ten on a scale of 1 to 10.
Consulting Systems Engineer at Boomslang Tech
The technical support from Akamai API Security is responsive when I have dealt with them.
System Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
The employment and support are of excellent quality.
Arquiteto at C.Vale - Cooperativa Agroindustrial
I would rate the technical support of Imperva DDoS as ten.
Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
The response is satisfactory, though the gaps in enablement and lab sessions are clear.
CTO at Malam Engineering PLC
My experience with technical support from Imperva Application Security Platform was good when I reached out to them.
Senior Presales Consultant at Techlab security
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
4.7
Akamai API Security is praised for its scalability, reliability, and performance, seamlessly integrating with diverse architectures and traffic loads.
Sentiment score
7.6
Imperva is praised for scalability in cloud environments, though infrastructure compatibility and license costs may pose challenges.
Akamai API Security has good scalability and does not have problems because it works with APIs.
Consulting Systems Engineer at Boomslang Tech
99% of customers are using the cloud version of Imperva DDoS protection, so they just purchase the new license and scale as needed.
Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
I have not even needed support after deployment, since it has remained stable.
CTO at Malam Engineering PLC
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Akamai API Security is highly stable, performs well in cyber crime investigations, and is regarded as an excellent WAF.
Sentiment score
7.9
Imperva Application Security Platform is stable and reliable, with minimal downtime and quick resolution of occasional issues.
My experience has been good, and it is an excellent WAF solution.
Arquiteto at C.Vale - Cooperativa Agroindustrial
It is also a stable product without much glitch or downtime.
Senior Presales Consultant at Techlab security
One notable drawback is that, unlike Fortinet, which offers fast track labs and continuous enablement, Imperva Application Security Platform lacks lab access and fast track labs for enablement and product advertising.
CTO at Malam Engineering PLC
The stability of Imperva DDoS is very good, as it seems they have a lot of servers around the world.
Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Akamai API Security needs better integration, precise risk scoring, and improved analytics, while pricing varies greatly by module.
Users seek improved UI, lower pricing, enhanced features, better support, and integrations in Imperva Application Security Platform.
From a pricing standpoint, licensing and pricing depend from module to module. Some modules are expensive, and some are affordable.
System Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
If Akamai API Security could provide many more security options and make it more transparent to users about exactly what is happening, that would be beneficial.
Security Delivery Analyst at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
A potential improvement for Akamai API Security would be more granular risk scoring per API asset.
Consulting Systems Engineer at Boomslang Tech
To convince my clients, a purely on-prem solution would be ideal since they are financial institutions.
CTO at Malam Engineering PLC
Maybe Imperva DDoS could use endpoints to get information about the attacks before they commence from the endpoint level or establish cooperation with endpoint vendors to share this information.
Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
Regarding return on investment, ROI, I can say it is noticeable with Imperva Application Security Platform.
Senior Presales Consultant at Techlab security
 

Setup Cost

Akamai API Security pricing is enterprise-tiered, traffic or API-based, with variable licensing and usually priced but valuable support.
Imperva's pricing varies by features and deployment, often seen as complex and costly, impacting adoption in sensitive markets.
It is not expensive.
Arquiteto at C.Vale - Cooperativa Agroindustrial
The cost is justified in organizations with large API exposure.
Consulting Systems Engineer at Boomslang Tech
I would rate the pricing of Imperva DDoS as five, where one is very cheap and ten is very expensive.
Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
 

Valuable Features

Akamai API Security enhances security through automated API discovery, anomaly detection, and seamless integration, improving visibility and compliance.
Imperva offers comprehensive web threat protection with an intuitive interface, advanced analytics, and seamless integration for simplified application security.
This gave us an overall picture of how many APIs we are using across our organization, and now we are more cautious about which APIs should be used publicly and how we secure our APIs.
Incident Manager at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The automatic API discovery has worked well for me by helping me identify APIs that were not formally documented, detect risky data exposure patterns, and flag abnormal traffic behavior early.
Consulting Systems Engineer at Boomslang Tech
Before an attack goes live, we detect it on the WAF itself, which is the outer layer of security. We detect it and block it.
Security Delivery Analyst at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I have utilized Imperva's Intelligent Traffic Filtering feature. This feature helps me understand how the attack is progressing and what is happening inside the requests to our website.
Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
I believe the reputational analysis in Imperva Application Security Platform is effective for blocking security threats before impact.
Senior Presales Consultant at Techlab security
The main drawback for signature-based approaches happens when there is a new zero-day attack that is not in the database.
CTO at Malam Engineering PLC
 

Categories and Ranking

Akamai API Security
Ranking in API Security
1st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Imperva Application Securit...
Ranking in API Security
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
135
Ranking in other categories
CDN (3rd), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (3rd), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (4th), Bot Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the API Security category, the mindshare of Akamai API Security is 9.1%, down from 20.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Imperva Application Security Platform is 9.3%, up from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Akamai API Security9.1%
Imperva Application Security Platform9.3%
Other81.6%
API Security
 

Featured Reviews

Ronald Paz - PeerSpot reviewer
Consulting Systems Engineer at Boomslang Tech
Increased API visibility has reduced shadow endpoints and improved data protection
The most impactful feature Akamai API Security offers has been automated API discovery and behavior anomaly detection. The automatic API discovery has worked well for me by helping me identify APIs that were not formally documented, detect risky data exposure patterns, and flag abnormal traffic behavior early. This has reduced blind spots significantly.
reviewer1247523 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
Solution ensures website availability and proactive threat mitigation
Over the seven years, the most valuable features of Imperva DDoS that I have found are related to DDoS attacks, which are a group of attacks, and not all of them can be resolved on the endpoint level before the website. Using the web firewall before the website is a common use case to protect against malicious requests to the website. I have utilized Imperva's Intelligent Traffic Filtering feature. This feature helps me understand how the attack is progressing and what is happening inside the requests to our website. It allows me to granularly grant or deny access to certain parts of our website. This helps when we know our customers and the types of requests that can be sent from them, enabling us to block some malicious requests. Imperva DDoS has User Behavior Analytics and Threat Intelligence on its board, and this helps us to be protected proactively. Imperva DDoS connects to its database of threats, storing whole information about attacks all over the world in one simple engine. Everyone can use this feature, which can connect to this engine and get information about what is going on at the world level. That is the way to be protected at the company's level. The integration capabilities of Imperva DDoS are very easy and simple. We can run it in 2 hours.
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which API Security solutions are best for your needs.
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Comparison Review

it_user68487 - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Expert with 51-200 employees
Nov 6, 2013
CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Web Application Firewall
CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Round 2 Web Application Firewall Comparative Penetration Testing Analysis Report v1.0 Summary This document contains the results of a second comparative penetration test conducted by a team of security specialists at Zero Science Lab against two cloud-based Web…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business84
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise62
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Akamai API Security?
It is not expensive. It is practical to use and represents an excellent solution.
What needs improvement with Akamai API Security?
The tool is blocking and only the person who has access to the tool can actually see how many DDoS attacks were blocked. Since I do not log in to the portal myself, I am unaware of this capability....
What is your primary use case for Akamai API Security?
Since multiple teams were involved in issue resolving, at least ten plus people from our side were involved in the implementation process. Everyone was contributing, even if we consider two per tea...
Which Web Application Firewall (WAF) would you recommend? R&S or Imperva?
Imperva is a strong choice, given their security focus and ongoing R&D into the product in areas such as bot management.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Imperva DDoS?
The pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Imperva DDoS are reasonable for the amount of technical capabilities provided. I would rate the pricing of Imperva DDoS as five, where one is very cheap a...
What needs improvement with Imperva DDoS?
I would like to see improvements in the pooling of threats and attacks, possibly to enlarge the scale of indicators of compromise. For example, the initiation of an attack on the endpoint level cou...
 

Also Known As

Noname Security
Imperva Bot Management, Imperva Web Application Firewall, Imperva API Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Hitachi, BNZ, Bitstamp, Moz, InnoGames, BTCChina, Wix, LivePerson, Zillow and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai API Security vs. Imperva Application Security Platform and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.