Akamai App and API Protector vs Check Point DDoS Protector comparison

Akamai App and API Protector vs. Check Point DDoS Protector

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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 March 2026, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 16.2%, down from 18.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai App and API Protector is 4.4%, up from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Check Point DDoS Protector is 1.0%, up from 1.0% 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	16.2%
Akamai App and API Protector	4.4%
Check Point DDoS Protector	1.0%
Other	78.4%

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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reviewer2753559

Cyber Security Solution Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees

Ensures service availability and handles attacks effectively though initial setup needs expertise

The best features that Check Point DDoS Protector offers, which stand out to me the most, are real-time detection and mitigation of application-layer DDoS attacks, easy integration with the existing Check Point security infrastructure, and low latency protection that does not disrupt legitimate traffic. The centralized console makes it easy to manage policy across devices, and the integration is straightforward since it works seamlessly with Check Point firewall and management and other security products. Check Point DDoS Protector has positively impacted my organization by improving uptime, reducing incidents, and providing cost savings. It will reduce the incidents up to 30%.

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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 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."

"New and innovative way to protect the client's data."

"The solution is stable, and the DNS servers are simple to use."

"It is a fast and secure DNS."

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

"The solution offers the flexibility to control configuration rules."

"The most valuable feature is its usability."

"Cloudflare has many features."

More Cloudflare pros

"Everything will be handled by Akamai's system before it reaches our infrastructure."

"Adaptive stream delivery and WAF protection are valuable."

"I can attest to its benefits in terms of understanding and mitigating threats...The solution's technical support team seems to be pretty responsive."

"They have a fantastic tool for analyzing and viewing your traffic."

"The product has a good UI."

"It enables us to move faster with new products because we have this layer of protection set up in our infrastructure."

"The product has a good user interface."

"All the solution's features are very good."

More Akamai App and API Protector pros

"The initial setup takes two hours."

"From my experience, the best part of this solution is behavioral DDoS protection. The DDoS Protector can monitor the traffic, and based on the behavior, it can decide which traffic is malicious and which traffic is regular. It works dynamically, and it's a very good solution."

"The is a really low level of the false-positive alerts (when the clean traffic is marked as DDoS) due to some advanced techniques used by Check Point under the hood."

"Check Point DDoS Protector has positively impacted my organization by improving uptime, reducing incidents, and providing cost savings."

"Check Point DDoS Protector is a product that uses machine learning and behavior analysis."

"One of its most outstanding functions is the zero-day DDOS."

"This product uses auto-learning and behavioral analysis to establish baselines for legitimate traffic, and automatically detects and blocks traffic behavior that does not conform."

"As our business continues to grow, we can grow this product simultaneously."

More Check Point DDoS Protector pros

Cons

"Areas like how assessment, discovery, and payload are dealt with and how it all comes into your organization can be considered when trying to make suggestions to Cloudflare for improvements."

"There should be a specific price list for enterprise-level customers."

"In the last two years, there has been a certain amount of downtime when using the VDM."

"There might be helpful if there was some web application firewall feature."

"There could be more courses with engineers. I like e-learning, however, having a specialist in a classroom is more comfortable for me."

"We are a product integrator and reseller, and we would like to have a better partner relationship, similar to a channel sales relationship. Sometimes we are on our own or get diverted by Cloudflare because they have direct sales, which competes with us and makes it difficult to build a relationship with this company since we want to be an MSP or a managed service provider for the solution."

"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."

"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."

More Cloudflare cons

"The effectiveness of Akamai's bot management in reducing unauthorized access is quite good, although it does require a lot of fine-tuning and tweaking, which involves spending ample time with their support teams to tailor the configuration to our applications."

"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."

"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."

"Customer support has room for improvement."

"Support and the pricing need to improve."

"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."

"Could integrate more features for each security."

"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."

More Akamai App and API Protector cons

"The mitigation part could be improved."

"The product is expensive."

"The public documentation is a detail that must be improved in order to have greater implementations with the best practices in this case of the Check Point manufacturer."

"Check Point DDoS Protector does not provide the ability to upload data for the blacklist/whitelist in bulk, which is one of the big points that need to be improved to facilitate configurations."

"For a long time, there was no software version of R80.10 available for the Check Point DDoS Protector software appliances, and we had to stay on the quite outdated R77.30 version."

"I would like applications for Android and IOS where we can follow the events, and, if necessary, make changes."

"Check Point DDoS Protector can be improved in that initial fine-tuning of policies can be complex and may require expertise."

"Monitoring and reporting are the things that can be introduced in the future."

More Check Point DDoS Protector cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is expensive."

"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."

"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."

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

"The pricing for the service is reasonable, neither excessively cheap nor prohibitively expensive. It aligns well with the value of their solution."

"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."

"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"Price-wise, I would say Akamai's pricing is competitive."

"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."

"Its price is at the medium level. It is not very high. It is also not very low. It serves the purpose."

"Akamai is very expensive."

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

"Cost depends on the volume of traffic."

"Its price is slightly high. Every company has a justification for the high price. Overall, it feels worth the money based on how the service has been structured, but we do negotiate it."

"Akamai Web Application Protector is an expensive product."

More Akamai App and API Protector pricing and cost advice

"It's an expensive solution. It's one of the most expensive solutions in the world. It's cheaper than Palo Alto and Cisco but these are expensive solutions. Fortinet is cheaper."

"The appliance comes with a loaded hardware license, and additional options such as SSL can be purchased and enabled."

"I don't deal with the pricing, but it seems that you need to get basic support in order to upgrade the DDoS database for new attacks and so on."

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884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

18%

Manufacturing Company

Performing Arts

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

36%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	26

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	12
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	5

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 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?

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

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.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Check Point DDoS Protector?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is straightforward with no challenges.

What needs improvement with Check Point DDoS Protector?

Check Point DDoS Protector can be improved in that initial fine-tuning of policies can be complex and may require exp...

What is your primary use case for Check Point DDoS Protector?

My main use case for Check Point DDoS Protector is to protect our network perimeter against DDoS attacks, ensuring se...

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 44% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Compared 3% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

Myra Security DDoS Protection vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

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Radware Cloud WAF Service vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 5% of the time

Prolexic vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 5% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 5% of the time

AWS WAF vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 4% of the time

More Akamai App and API Protector Competitors

Radware DDoS vs Check Point DDoS Protector

Compared 25% of the time

Fortinet FortiDDoS vs Check Point DDoS Protector

Compared 22% of the time

Arbor DDoS vs Check Point DDoS Protector

Compared 17% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Check Point DDoS Protector

Compared 10% of the time

More Check Point DDoS Protector Competitors

Product Reports

Cloudflare

Download Cloudflare product report

Akamai App and API Protector

Download Akamai App and API Protector product report

Check Point DDoS Protector

Download Check Point DDoS Protector product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

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

No data available

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

Modern DDoS attacks use new techniques to exploit areas that traditional security solutions are not equipped to protect. These attacks can cause serious network downtime to businesses who rely on networks and Web services to operate. DDoS Protector Security Appliances and Cloud DDoS Protection Services block destructive DDoS attacks before they cause damage
Learn more about Ddos Protector.

Check Point Software Technologies

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

Boston Properties

Akamai App and API Protector vs. Check Point DDoS Protector