Akamai App and API Protector vs Fortinet FortiAppSec Cloud comparison

Akamai and Fortinet are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Akamai is ranked #16 with an average rating of 8.0, while Fortinet is ranked #41. Additionally, 100% of Akamai users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Fortinet users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Akamai App and API Protector and Fortinet FortiAppSec Cloud based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, F5, Imperva and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF).

To learn more, read our detailed Web Application Firewall (WAF) Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

March 2026

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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 Web Application ...

Featured Reviews

Dean Barisic

CTO at PlayNirvana

Advanced security reporting has protected high-traffic betting platforms from constant attacks

I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we have a dedicated IT team for that, and I'm not involved with Cloudflare much anymore. But if I were to compare them to F5, I would like to see more features that F5 offers. F5 has an option to bring the whole infrastructure, the whole WAF and all their packages, Bot Management, and everything else on your infrastructure. You need to install certain services from their side, and then you can choose if you would like requests to hit your servers immediately or if requests need to be proxied through F5 backbone. That would be a nice addition because we have 90% of the traffic as legit traffic coming from whitelisted servers. If it comes from whitelisted servers, I don't need to go every request through the backbone; I could easily just IP whitelist everything. Then I could maybe have Bot Management on my infrastructure that drastically reduces the price of Cloudflare. I would like to see Push CDN more improved in the next release of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. And maybe something similar to Pushpin that Fastly has, which is an option where you can push messages that then can be scaled globally over the network. From our perspective, if we have a listener that listens for stock updates, I would just need to have one processor that pushes those updates to the Cloudflare API, and then Cloudflare would broadcast that message to all listeners. Cloudflare will check the order of the message, and if you, as a customer, are not connected or have some kind of network issue, when you reconnect, you will receive the latest state and missing updates.

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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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Mohamed Fouad

Cybersecurity Team Leader at EMAK For Computer Manufacturing (ECM)

Web protection has improved security posture and prevents advanced bot and zero-day attacks

In my opinion, the best features of Fortinet FortiAppSec Cloud are usability and price, which are the two strongest features from Fortinet security products. We use the advanced bot mitigation, which supports credential stuffing, account takeover prevention, and stopping layer 7 DDoS and OWASP Top 10 attacks. With the bot mitigation in Fortinet FortiAppSec Cloud, we control end users whenever they connect to our website, checking that they are not bots and allowing access only after verification. We run AI detection in a testing phase, using both basic and advanced security measures, including API security and XML protection. AI helps by providing machine learning that suggests which policies need tuning and which signatures need to be added to our policy. Fortinet FortiAppSec Cloud's adaptability to traffic patterns helps mitigate zero-day vulnerabilities through machine learning. Fortinet FortiAppSec Cloud helps our organization by relying on Fortinet threat intelligence, which provides information on newly emerging zero-day attacks, allowing us to run signatures to stop these attacks. We utilize the dynamic learning capabilities for threat updates.

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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

"I'm highly satisfied. It's remarkably user-friendly, enabling me to quickly identify issues, and deploy solutions, and it offers the necessary features."

"Cloudflare is cheaper compared to Azure WAF, which I have considered before."

"The impact of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's integration with existing web technologies on our site's performance and security measures is quite great, actually."

"The rate limiting features and customizations in terms of URL match and applying policies are valuable to me."

"Cloudflare has positively impacted my organization by making it easier for me to handle and set up DNS for multiple clients; I can easily go in and access their accounts, make changes they need, and it's a one-stop shop."

"Caching is the most valuable feature of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall."

"It's pretty convenient and pretty easy to set up and run. And then kind of for static content, it also offers caching."

"It protects web applications efficiently."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pros

"Traffic filtering and WAF are valuable."

"It gives us a report of traffic. It gives us a report of the day-to-day URL traffic, and it also gives an individual report. If we reach out to Akamai, they give us the IPs as well."

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

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

"The product is user-friendly."

"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 support that we got from their technical team has been fantastic. I have never experienced this level of support from other CDN providers."

More Akamai App and API Protector pros

"We have seen a reduction in incidents and a good return on investment from Fortinet FortiAppSec Cloud, with our return on investment around 60%."

Cons

"The notification part could be improved. It's very much connected to Web Application Firewall, rate-limiting, and DDoS protection."

"The learning curve was steep initially."

"We have noticed some latency when the call goes through the firewall. That could be improved."

"The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available."

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should include port forwarding features."

"The accuracy of the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall could be improved by reducing the number of false-negative alerts."

"It would be ideal if the solution offered better log integration and more integration with different platforms."

"The solution's learning curve can still be further reduced"

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall cons

"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 custom rules must be improved."

"Could integrate more features for each security."

"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."

"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."

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

"The pricing could be reduced a bit."

"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."

More Akamai App and API Protector cons

"Real-time traffic analysis has posed an issue for us because we did not see logs for legitimate traffic."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."

"The solution is expensive."

"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."

"What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I believe the pricing is not the best, but it's reasonable and acceptable. We also use the McAfee system in parallel. In terms of pricing, its okay - not great, but not bad either. It falls in the middle, which is acceptable. In terms of support licensing, last time, we were searching for a solution, and we considered products from resellers rather than directly from the cloud provider. However, the pricing we encountered was exceptionally high. As a result, we are inclined to select support from the reseller."

"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."

"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."

"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."

"It is not too pricey."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

"The solution is expensive."

"Cost depends on the volume of traffic."

"The product’s price is high."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

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

More Akamai App and API Protector pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

18%

Manufacturing Company

Performing Arts

Computer Software Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	6

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

No data available

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

The price of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

We are using Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools with their Zero Trust, so e...

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

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

March 2026

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

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Buyer's Guide

Akamai App and API Protector

March 2026

Download Akamai App and API Protector product report

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

March 2026

Download Fortinet FortiAppSec Cloud product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF

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

No data available

Overview

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's intuitive dashboard enables users to build powerful rules through easy clicks and also provides Terraform integration. Every request to the WAF is inspected against the rule engine and the threat intelligence curated from protecting over 27 Million websites. Suspicious requests can be blocked, challenged or logged as per the needs of the user while legitimate requests are routed to the destination, agnostic of whether it lives on-premise or in the cloud. Analytics and Cloudflare Logs enable visibility into actionable metrics for the user.

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

Fortinet FortiAppSec Cloud is a comprehensive security offering, designed to protect applications across cloud environments. It focuses on providing advanced security measures that cater to the needs of enterprises looking for robust application protection.

Fortinet FortiAppSec Cloud leverages an array of sophisticated technologies to offer top-tier security for cloud applications. It safeguards against threats by implementing features such as cutting-edge machine learning models and real-time threat intelligence. This ensures data integrity and application availability, crucial for maintaining normal business operations. By integrating seamlessly into cloud environments, Fortinet FortiAppSec Cloud offers a user-friendly experience that does not compromise on security.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiAppSec Cloud?

Machine Learning Models: Employs AI for threat detection and prevention, enhancing security efficiency.
Real-Time Threat Intelligence: Offers timely updates to combat emerging threats.
Seamless Cloud Integration: Ensures easy deployment and operation within cloud infrastructures.
Scalability: Adapts to growing business needs, providing consistent security coverage.

What benefits should users expect when evaluating Fortinet FortiAppSec Cloud?

Cost Efficiency: Reduces expenses by preventing security breaches and minimizing downtime.
Enhanced Security Posture: Provides improved protection, reducing vulnerability exposure.
Operational Efficiency: Streamlines management, allowing IT teams to focus on strategic tasks.
Future-Proof Investment: Offers scalable security to meet evolving business demands.

Fortinet FortiAppSec Cloud is widely implemented across industries such as finance, healthcare, and e-commerce. Organizations in these fields benefit from its ability to secure sensitive data and maintain compliance with rigorous industry standards. Its adaptive design ensures that businesses can provide secure and reliable services to their customers at all times.

Fortinet

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk

Douglas Omaha Technology Commission, ZALORA, PrintPlanet

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

March 2026

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