Akamai App and API Protector vs Cloudflare One comparison

Akamai and Cloudflare are both solutions in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category. Akamai is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.0, while Cloudflare is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.5. Akamai holds a 4.7% mindshare in DDOS, compared to Cloudflare’s 3.7% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Akamai users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Cloudflare users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 5, 2026

Cloudflare One and Akamai App and API Protector are competitive in application and API security and performance optimization. Cloudflare One leads with pricing and customer support, while Akamai is preferred for its advanced features and value.

Features: Cloudflare One integrates Zero Trust policies and threat mitigation, simplifying security tasks with user-friendly interfaces and cost-effective firewall solutions. Akamai App and API Protector has comprehensive bot management, advanced WAF features, and offers robust API protection, backed by enhanced threat intelligence and AI capabilities.

Room for Improvement: Cloudflare One could enhance feature depth and AI integration, improve threat intelligence, and optimize comprehensive security analysis. Akamai App and API Protector can streamline deployment, reduce overall complexity, and offer more transparent pricing; in addition, it could improve customer onboarding.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cloudflare One is favored for its straightforward deployment process and responsive customer service. Akamai App and API Protector offers dedicated support to manage its more complex deployment process efficiently, maintaining strong customer relations through attentive support.

Pricing and ROI: Cloudflare One offers competitive pricing, ensuring a good return on investment with lower costs. Akamai App and API Protector, despite higher initial costs, justifies pricing with advanced security features, providing long-term benefits and high value for premium pricing structures.

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

Buyer's Guide

Akamai App and API Protector vs. Cloudflare One

June 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 900,747 peers since 2012

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 June 2026, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 13.2%, down from 19.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai App and API Protector is 4.7%, up from 4.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cloudflare One is 3.7%, down from 3.8% 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	13.2%
Akamai App and API Protector	4.7%
Cloudflare One	3.7%
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.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

Cobe Van Coller

Network Architect at IP Dimension

Cloud security has improved remote access and has reduced costs for smaller client sites

I have used Cloudflare One's Identity-Aware Proxy, and it is quite straightforward from what I have seen so far. The app registration on the Azure side integrates fully into Cloudflare, and I am very satisfied with that part because it is easy to set up. The integration of Cloudflare One's Secure Web Gateway and Zero Trust Network Access works without any issues. That part is pretty automatic, and if you complete the rest of the setup, it comes together by itself with no issues from my side. What makes it nice is that we can actually start replacing on-site firewalls at this stage for the smaller clients because it does not matter if they go to a coffee shop or work from home; they are still secured by the same connection. The hops get shorter and you get better latency. We have done testing to see if it is better. One thing that we did notice with our proof of concept with our current client is that they have people connecting from the UK. When they used their previous VPN solution, uploading CAD drawings and other files to the server took a long time. They mentioned that it is much quicker on Cloudflare One's solution. I definitely believe that is part of the improved performance, and I am satisfied with that as well. What is nice about Cloudflare One is that it makes the setup easier and also easier to train technicians to maintain it. Compared to legacy systems, we do not need to get fancy firewalls in place that are costly. That is definitely also a cost-saver with Cloudflare One.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's very user-friendly."

"The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security."

"The UI is good."

"If you don't want to spend too much time hosting your own DNS server or managing the domain, Cloudflare is a great way to rapidly get websites and services online."

"Centralized, full-featured DNS."

"Cloudflare has positively impacted our organization by giving us flexibility to manage the DNS part, being quite fast, and allowing us to manage everything from a single dashboard, which is quite handy."

"The features of Cloudflare were found to be more beneficial and led to the decision to utilize it over other options."

"The initial setup is extremely easy but will require access to your Domain Name Servers."

More Cloudflare pros

"Overall, I am happy with Site Defender because what it's doing, it's doing well."

"I like that the charges are all based on usage and labor costs. For the time that we spend onboarding almost 252020 FQDN, Akamai charges us only for the traffic usage, but it's only charging us for the labor costs for onboarding."

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

"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."

"We are getting security for each and every API."

"The solution can scale extremely well."

"The product has a good user interface."

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

More Akamai App and API Protector pros

"The blocking feature is very good."

"It is a stable solution."

"The simplicity of the solution is its valuable features as almost no effort was needed to learn the configurations. It is also one of the cheapest firewalls available in this category."

"The solution has different options that can be used to differentiate DDoS attacks."

"Cloudflare DDoS mitigates DDoS attacks."

"I'm very satisfied with the environment and the dashboard."

"It's a perfect solution from my perspective; it's easy to understand and easy to configure."

"The best feature is rate limiting. If I'm expecting 500 visits per hour, Cloudflare will limit the requests if I suddenly get 50,000."

More Cloudflare One pros

Cons

"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."

"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."

"Access to the solution's dashboards is not intended for a service company. You are practically blind, and to validate a problem, you must view the customer's screen."

"The one feature that is paid is the custom nameservers instead of using the default ones, I want to use a custom one."

"It looks like they don't support as many TLDs as other registrars, but since they are very new as a registrar, I expect this may improve soon."

"Cloudflare could offer a better view or maybe dashboards of the main resources used in the client."

"I have found CloudFlare's support to be unresponsive at times, and not very helpful with providing technical details for issues that we have reported over the years."

"It should have easier documentation for the configuration. It's very technical and people who aren't technical should also be able to do the configuration."

More Cloudflare cons

"The custom rules must be improved."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"It would be nice if Akamai Web Application Protector's price is lowered and made cheaper."

"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."

"The performance of the cloud monitoring tool is low."

"If we talk about application layer attacks, including WAF, CloudFlare is leading. Akamai can focus a bit more on the application layer attacks and how to protect them."

More Akamai App and API Protector cons

"The onboarding process can be improved a little bit."

"Feedback could be enhanced. While I work efficiently with Clover as a partner in Mexico City, sometimes the information and requests are easier to manage with more concrete solutions."

"For the topic of improvement, providing some training material is one of my suggestions."

"The tool should provide on-premise versions. Currently, all versions are cloud-based."

"Cloudflare One is not very powerful, but for what we require, it is basic and sufficient."

"From a logging perspective, it is still a bit difficult to see exactly what users are being blocked with the current views."

"The initial onboarding was causing us some confusion."

"They don't have a person to provide support for customers using the solution under their free plan."

More Cloudflare One cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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."

"The price is reasonable."

"The price of the solution is expensive."

"We are using the free tier of the solution."

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

"I believe their performance has improved, but I'd like to refrain from discussing the pricing aspect related to the cloud. The pricing, in my opinion, could be simplified, and I think they should consider reevaluating the pricing for support, as it can be quite high. At times, this cost can make it challenging to choose CARFAGuard or opt for the support."

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

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"Akamai Web Application Protector is an expensive product."

"It's more expensive than others, but the ROI is good for large-scale infrastructure."

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

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

"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 is very expensive."

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

"The solution is expensive."

More Akamai App and API Protector pricing and cost advice

"The price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."

"The pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."

"My company has to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution. There are no hidden charges apart from the licensing costs of the solution."

"The prices are slightly expensive."

"The solution is not that expensive."

"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."

"The solution's pricing lacks transparency."

"The pricing of the solution is cheap. The licensing cost is also very low. I rate the cost and pricing a three out of ten."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

900,747 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%

Comms Service Provider

Performing Arts

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

19%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing 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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	12

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...

See all answers

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 DNS?

The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Cloudflare are a bit on the higher side overall.

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform?

Pricing is competitive. Akamai is more expensive, in my view.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform?

In my opinion, Cloudflare One can be improved mainly through compatibility, as the integration should be much simpler...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform?

Cloudflare One's primary use case for my organization is to protect servers and to provide remote access with the VPN...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 36% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Fastly vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

AWS Shield vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 6% of the time

AWS WAF vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 5% of the time

Radware Cloud WAF Service 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

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 3% of the time

More Akamai App and API Protector Competitors

Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs Cloudflare One

Compared 4% of the time

Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform vs Cloudflare One

Compared 3% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Cloudflare One

Compared 3% of the time

Twingate vs Cloudflare One

Compared 3% of the time

FortiSASE vs Cloudflare One

Compared 3% of the time

More Cloudflare One Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

June 2026

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

Akamai App and API Protector

June 2026

Download Akamai App and API Protector product report

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare One

June 2026

Download Cloudflare One product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

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

Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Cloudflare Bot Management, Cloudflare Gateway, Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform, Cloudflare DDoS, Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform

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

Cloudflare One is a comprehensive platform for security, performance, and connectivity. It provides features like rate limiting, DDoS protection, and application access, tailored to enhance user experience while securing internet access and accelerating communications.

Designed to integrate security measures with ease of use and scalability, Cloudflare One offers a secure web gateway and zero trust network access. These features ensure seamless setup and operation, making connectivity reliable and protected. Users appreciate its integrated console, intuitive interface, and the ability to manage risk effectively. It offers straightforward deployment, improves latency, and boasts cost-effectiveness. While its onboarding process and documentation need enhancement, its value in content delivery and application shielding is notable. Despite challenges in integrating Cloudflare Access with existing VPNs and the need for better automation and support, it remains vital for DNS and infrastructure protection.

What features make Cloudflare One stand out?

Rate Limiting: Controls the traffic rate to prevent abuse.
DDoS Protection: Shields applications from distributed denial-of-service attacks.
Secure Web Gateway: Provides secure internet access with seamless operation.
Zero Trust Network Access: Ensures secure, application-based connectivity without relying on traditional VPNs.
Access for Connectivity: Facilitates access to internal applications securely.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Security: Robust measures for DNS and browsing protection.
Performance: Enhanced site accessibility and communication speed.
Cost-Effectiveness: Offers competitive pricing for its features.
Ease of Deployment: Straightforward and efficient setup process.

In industries like finance, retail, and technology, Cloudflare One is crucial for enabling secure remote access and protecting web applications against dynamic threats. It supports compliance access policies and enhances content delivery, playing a key role in safeguarding digital infrastructure.

Cloudflare

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

23andMe

Buyer's Guide

Akamai App and API Protector vs. Cloudflare One

June 2026

Free Report: Akamai App and API Protector vs. Cloudflare One

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

DOWNLOAD NOW

900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Akamai App and API Protector vs. Cloudflare One report.

See our list of best Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection vendors.

We monitor all Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.