

Fastly and Akamai App and API Protector are competing products in content delivery and web application security. Akamai appears to have the upper hand due to its advanced security features, while Fastly excels in pricing and support.
Features: Fastly provides real-time visibility, configurable surrogate keys, and edge logic capabilities allowing rapid updates. Akamai stands out with advanced attack prevention, bot management, and superior DDoS protection, ensuring a comprehensive security approach.
Room for Improvement: Fastly could enhance its feature set to provide more comprehensive security capabilities. Reducing complexity in its configurations could be another area to work on, alongside expanding bot management features. Akamai might focus on simplifying the deployment process and improving real-time visibility. Reducing costs could also be a potential improvement area for wider market appeal.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Fastly offers swift deployment and responsive customer support, enhancing the user experience. Akamai, while providing thorough customer service, has a more complex deployment process requiring detailed security configurations.
Pricing and ROI: Fastly is attractive with its transparent cost structure and flexible pricing, offering strong ROI with low initial setup costs. Akamai, despite being more expensive upfront, provides significant ROI through its extensive features, making it suitable for businesses needing enhanced security investments.
Realizing a 30 to 50% reduction in latency and page load time, ensuring users experience a seamless workflow.
I have seen a return on investment, particularly in time savings, especially regarding the changes.
demonstrating the team's technical expertise in CDN and Edge architecture
We have SLAs defined because we opted for enterprise support pricing.
I would describe Fastly's customer support as fast and efficient when I have had to use it.
Seamlessly handling massive traffic without requiring backend changes due to its globally distributed Edge network and stateless API-driven design.
Highly reliable for enterprise-scale applications with high uptime guarantees.
I chose 8 out of 10 because it has excellent performance and low latency delivery, making it suitable for larger applications, with strong Edge Caching and instant purging capabilities.
Fastly could improve by improving the documentation and having some code examples.
Fastly should provide features similar to Cloudflare regarding a block list.
It operates on a pay-as-you-go structure, but costs scale with traffic, requiring monitoring to avoid unexpected spikes based on data transfers and the number of requests handled.
In terms of price, I find it good.
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.
Initially, we faced load time issues, but after deploying Fastly and optimizing our queries, we achieved a response time cut to less than 1 millisecond from an initial 3 to 4 seconds.
We have improvements in traceability by having the changes integrated into the Git repositories and having the possibility of doing a rollback in the event of any problem in a very simple way.
In this project, it is working as a reverse proxy for CDN and WAF, web application firewall, additionally image optimization.
| Product | Mindshare (%) |
|---|---|
| Akamai App and API Protector | 3.0% |
| Fastly | 2.2% |
| Other | 94.8% |


| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 4 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 7 |
| Large Enterprise | 18 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 6 |
| Large Enterprise | 7 |
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?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.
Fastly is a leading provider of content delivery network services that enhances website performance through efficient caching and real-time architecture capabilities.
Fastly integrates CDN technology with advanced web application firewall for comprehensive security. Its global infrastructure supports performance enhancement, rapid deployment, and rollback capabilities. Utilizing the VCL language allows custom caching solutions. Compute@Edge provides extensive architectural flexibility, aiding in HTML manipulation and script execution. Users benefit from its stability and reliability features for seamless network protection, log management, image optimization, and A/B testing. Challenges include limited support in mainland China, inadequate WebSocket protocol implementation, and complex pricing structures.
What are the key features of Fastly?Fastly is widely implemented in industries needing robust content delivery and security capabilities. Companies use it as a reverse proxy for media delivery, ensuring availability and optimized performance. Its rapid deployment and rollback features are particularly beneficial in technology sectors requiring agile responses to demand shifts.
We monitor all Web Application Firewall (WAF) 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.