Akamai App and API Protector vs Fortinet FortiDDoS comparison

Akamai and Fortinet are both solutions in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category. Akamai is ranked #10 with an average rating of 7.0, while Fortinet is ranked #15 with an average rating of 8.0. Akamai holds a 5.0% mindshare in DDOS, compared to Fortinet’s 1.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Akamai users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of Fortinet users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Fortinet FortiDDoS and Akamai App and API Protector are key players in the cybersecurity sector. Fortinet FortiDDoS leads in pricing and customer support, while Akamai App and API Protector offers superior advanced features, making it an attractive choice for those prioritizing comprehensive security capabilities.

Features: Fortinet FortiDDoS provides powerful DDoS protection, real-time threat analysis, and automatic mitigation which focus on network security enhancement. Akamai App and API Protector, on the other hand, delivers extensive API security, bot management, and adaptive threat protection, offering a versatile range of policies suitable for varied environments.

Room for Improvement: Fortinet FortiDDoS could enhance its capabilities in API security and flexibility of security policies. Improvements in handling complex application-level threats might also be beneficial. Akamai App and API Protector could simplify its deployment process, offer better pricing strategies, and further reduce complexity in user interface operations for wider accessibility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Fortinet FortiDDoS impresses with easy deployment and responsive customer service, offering straightforward guidelines. Akamai App and API Protector provides comprehensive documentation and skilled support, although its deployment is more complex. Customers can benefit from Akamai’s robust feature set with the right resources.

Pricing and ROI: Fortinet FortiDDoS is lauded for its attractive pricing and efficient cost-to-benefit ratio, resulting in faster ROI. Akamai App and API Protector, despite higher initial costs, shows strong long-term ROI owing to advanced security capabilities. The choice depends on budget limits and needed security feature levels.

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

Buyer's Guide

Akamai App and API Protector vs. Fortinet FortiDDoS

June 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 908,834 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 August 2026, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 12.4%, down from 19.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai App and API Protector is 5.0%, up from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiDDoS is 1.9%, down from 2.8% 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	12.4%
Akamai App and API Protector	5.0%
Fortinet FortiDDoS	1.9%
Other	80.7%

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

Marcos AntonioOliveira

IT Analyst at Evapco, Inc.

Reliable protection and smooth setup enhance company security

Currently, I have two firewalls, with one located in Sorocaba, model 90D, and the other in São Paulo, model 30D. They are connected by VPN. I use the firewalls for VPN and final protection for my company, and my equipment is maintained by an internet company called Multiprox The equipment works…

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 a great product because it's scalable, has great coverage, and is mature with good defenses against DDoS attacks."

"There is no service as mature as Cloudflare that is also as easy to use, reliable, and hosted from excellent infrastructure."

"From a technical point of view, Cloudflare is the best CDN."

"I get a lot of value from Cloudflare's API because it enables you to build a separate environment inside the solution. You can create a domain for performing test requests before you move to the production environment and connect various domains."

"There are key things that are used for our enterprise customers, such as Lambda and DNS."

"The web application firewall brought us good security and a view of the accesses/blocks of the entire domain and subdomain that were accessed both by region (country) and IPs."

"DDoS attacks target unprotected machines. Cloudflare detects and stops these attacks using internal systems. It identifies incoming DDoS attacks, issuing challenges or blocking them immediately."

"The tool is user-friendly."

More Cloudflare pros

"Akamai is a very reliable provider and a very safe bet that will suit most environments' needs."

"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."

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

"Akamai Web Application Protector is a good solution that provides basic web application protection."

"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."

"Traffic filtering and WAF are valuable."

"Akamai Web Application Protector is exceptionally stable; after all, it is Akami."

"Akamai App and API Protector exceeds expectations in terms of AI capabilities, and it genuinely combines a plethora of advanced features."

More Akamai App and API Protector pros

"Compared to other DDoS mitigation solutions with similar deployment, FortiDDoS does not require a 24x7 NOC and has lower TCO."

"The solution is very user-friendly and very easy to use."

"It is a user-friendly product in terms of monitoring and updating policies."

"The product allows the users to adjust the thresholds."

"The pricing of this solution is better than that of Cisco and other software on the market, which are very expensive."

"It allows me to see all the traffic on my network."

"We have researched them all, and it's a good solution all around."

"Among its key features: Detects and mitigates DDoS attacks at L3 to L7; negligible to zero false-positives; Generates and sends reports without the need for an expensive third-party solution."

More Fortinet FortiDDoS pros

Cons

"The pricing could be improved."

"With CDN loads, sometimes we get an error that the host server is unavailable when the connection between CloudFlare and the server timed out."

"For large enterprises, the pricing is okay. However, the enterprise price for small projects is a bit high. A mid-tier pricing option would be beneficial."

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

"The reporting can definitely be improved to offer a lot more explanation on something that may have happened or has actually happened."

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

"It should be easier to collect the logs with companies like Sumo. However, based on my discussions with the salespeople, I understand that's how they make their money. With the enterprise product, they want people doing those kinds of enterprise features to do the logging. They want them to pay a lot of money, and that's where I have an issue with them. That should be a default. You should be able to get the log no matter what. The logging should be universal."

"The documentation could improve for Cloudflare DNS."

More Cloudflare cons

"Akamai needs to focus on quickly responding to risks, even those that may potentially be of zero threat..Maybe some of the documentation is a little confusing. They have a lot of different places where you can go to get information, and some of the information is quite out of date."

"One area where Akamai can improve is the captcha part. Cloudflare provides a captcha if there are a certain number of threats. For example, I can assign that if there are 10 requests within a second from a single IP, it should send a captcha to the user. The user should fill in the captcha, and only after that, the user should be able to access our website. This captcha feature should be built into Bot Manager. I love this captcha feature of Cloudflare."

"The solution could offer even more integrations."

"It's fine for a simple tool, but as I recall, if you encounter a lot of bots, scrapers, and other things, you'll need this tool bot and this other thing they offer called Bot Manager."

"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."

"Support and the pricing need to improve."

"Customer support has room for improvement."

"The pricing could be reduced a bit."

More Akamai App and API Protector cons

"The primary area for improvement is the on-premises capacity limit, currently fixed at 10 GB."

"The solution can be a little more user-friendly and it can be more affordable."

"Alerts and reporting features must be improved."

"Earlier versions of firmware had bugs that limit my options."

"The product’s pricing needs improvement."

"I find that there have been issues in the past year with the solution hanging. It freezes often."

"I would like to see analytics, big data."

"The web interface could be much better."

More Fortinet FortiDDoS cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"The product's pricing is cheap."

"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."

"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."

"It's a premium model. You can start at zero and work your way up to the enterprise model, which has a very high pricing level."

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

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"Akamai is very expensive."

"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."

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

"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 not expensive."

"Akamai Web Application Protector is an expensive product."

"Cost depends on the volume of traffic."

More Akamai App and API Protector pricing and cost advice

"The solution is reasonably priced."

"It's quite pricey."

"The product’s pricing needs improvement."

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

908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

17%

Comms Service Provider

Performing Arts

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

13%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Construction 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
Large Enterprise	6

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 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 advice do you have for others considering Akamai Web Application Protector?

The primary way Akamai App and API Protector helps manage evolving cyber threats is by considering the impact on reve...

See all answers

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

Arbor would be the best bid, apart from Arbor, Palo Alto and Fortinet have good solutions. As this is an ISP, I would...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiDDoS?

Fortinet FortiDDoS offers lower costs compared to other solutions. The licensing costs are annually renewed.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiDDoS?

There is a need for more features that protect personal information, especially given the PDP issue in Indonesia.

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 31% 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 8% of the time

AWS WAF vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 5% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 4% of the time

Radware DDoS vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 4% of the time

Radware Alteon vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 3% of the time

More Akamai App and API Protector Competitors

Arbor DDoS vs Fortinet FortiDDoS

Compared 14% of the time

Radware DDoS vs Fortinet FortiDDoS

Compared 14% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Fortinet FortiDDoS

Compared 8% of the time

VMware NSX vs Fortinet FortiDDoS

Compared 7% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Fortinet FortiDDoS

Compared 4% of the time

More Fortinet FortiDDoS Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

August 2026

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

Akamai App and API Protector

August 2026

Download Akamai App and API Protector product report

Buyer's Guide

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

August 2026

Download Fortinet FortiDDoS product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

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

Fortinet DDoS, FortiDDos

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

Fortinet FortiDDoS provides comprehensive protection against DDoS attacks across layers 3 to 7. It efficiently minimizes false positives and is valued for real-time attack monitoring, cloud DDoS scrubbing, and multi-layer security, leveraging purpose-built ASICs for high performance.

Fortinet FortiDDoS is favored for its robust defense capabilities in DDoS detection and mitigation, supporting sophisticated security infrastructures. Its purpose-built ASICs ensure effective performance without reliance on signature-based detection. While it offers strong features like attack monitoring and cloud scrubbing, users identify challenges with its complex setup and web interface. Additionally, the need for simplified features, enhanced application traffic management, and better alerts is crucial especially when handling sensitive data. Priced competitively, it presents scalability concerns particularly in on-premises environments.

What are Fortinet FortiDDoS's key features?

DDoS Detection: Protects infrastructure from layers 3 to 7 with minimal false positives.
Real-Time Monitoring: Enables instant attack detection and response.
Cloud Scrubbing: Offers cloud-based DDoS mitigation to cleanse traffic.
Purpose-Built ASICs: Ensures performance without reliance on signatures.
Multi-Layer Protection: Comprehensive security across different network layers.

What benefits should users expect from Fortinet FortiDDoS?

Enhanced Security: Protects against a wide range of DDoS threats.
Performance Optimization: Improves network traffic management.
Cost Efficiency: Competitive pricing with powerful capabilities.
Effective Mitigation: Reduces risks with real-time threats monitoring.
User Data Protection: Safeguards personal and sensitive information.

Fortinet FortiDDoS is widely used in internet datacenters with multiple upstreams to protect infrastructure and customers from potential threats. Companies deploy Fortinet appliances for managing network traffic and ensuring optimal performance. They rely on it for safeguarding web pages, web services, and networks while benefiting from ease of troubleshooting and effective VPN connections, critical for application-based attack defense.

Fortinet

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

Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data

Buyer's Guide

Akamai App and API Protector vs. Fortinet FortiDDoS

June 2026

Free Report: Akamai App and API Protector vs. Fortinet FortiDDoS

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

DOWNLOAD NOW

908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Akamai App and API Protector vs. Fortinet FortiDDoS 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.