Akamai App and API Protector vs The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) comparison

Akamai App and API Protector vs. The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences)

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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 ...

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 5.4%, down from 6.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai App and API Protector is 3.2%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) is 1.3%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall	5.4%
Akamai App and API Protector	3.2%
The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences)	1.3%
Other	90.1%

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

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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reviewer2161107

Staff Engineer at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees

Room for improvement with user interface while competitive pricing impresses

It is managed through Infrastructure as Code, so all configurations can be managed in the code itself, which is beneficial. Because it uses rules, it is easy to set up, and we have many different sites where the configurations are straightforward. Though the UI is not very interactive, which is a downside, we can manage many things. The UI is not very intuitive and could be better. However, we manage all the configurations through code, which is easy to maintain. It has extensive anomaly detection capabilities, so the traffic is classified into several categories where thresholds can be defined and customized based on false positives and false negatives. This is advantageous because you do not need to tweak it very often. Once you set it up, an audit once a quarter would suffice. Because The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) is API-driven, we have integrations with the CI/CD pipeline through GitHub Actions, making it easy to integrate.

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

"For us, the key feature of Cloudflare is DDoS protection and IP hiding, especially since we are a crypto company."

"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."

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

"Very glad the WAF rulesets works out of box, and requires very little tuning or maintenance."

"This is a good product; it's reliable and scales well."

"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."

"Someone with a basic understanding of networking and security will be able to implement the firewall's basic features within 15 minutes."

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

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pros

"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."

"The most valuable feature is the custom rules feature, because many of our customers require a lot of custom rules and, because it's a very customized project for our customers, I think they have the best of everything already."

"Traffic filtering and WAF are valuable."

"The dashboard is the most interesting feature of the Akamai portal where you can have a detailed analysis of all the attacks that are happening. You can drill down an issue and see exactly what is happening, who are the bad guys attacking your website, and how Akamai is protecting the website. That is the most valuable feature."

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

"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."

"It is scalable for DDoS."

"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

"When configuring a web application firewall using Signal Sciences, we configure a rule whereby no one except a few people can access the application."

"The product's most valuable feature is its ability to set up the rules easily."

"Fastly (Signal Sciences) integrates and tags the intermittent traffic based on patterns. It generates signals and provides them in a dashboard where we can view them and decide whether to allow or deny traffic. It's a more advanced and easy-to-navigate dashboard."

"Because The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) is API-driven, we have integrations with the CI/CD pipeline through GitHub Actions, making it easy to integrate."

Cons

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

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

"Their documentation could be better. They don't have documentation that explains everything well."

"The rate limiting functionality could be enhanced, as we find it somewhat limited."

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

"Its stability could be better."

"A key challenge arises when dealing with numerous integrations with HVAC systems. Depending on the specifics, there might be some configuration mismatches, which necessitate specific support."

"We don't even use Cloudflare Bot Management because it's too expensive; you need to pay per request, and it's much cheaper to get one or two additional machines."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall cons

"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."

"The custom rules must be improved."

"They should allow for multiple security configurations in one account which will enhance the scalability."

"I think there could be an improvement with the integration of more features for each security."

"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."

"It would be better if there weren't any issues with latency. We had latency issues, but I think they are all solved now."

"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."

More Akamai App and API Protector cons

"The areas that could be improved in Signal Sciences include the effectiveness of rules, as many didn't function optimally and required custom rule-writing to address bypasses for WAF."

"Even if we create some custom rules, Signal Sciences cannot capture some of the malicious traffic."

"The UI is not very intuitive and could be better."

"Fastly don't support caching for China users. That's the only feature lacking compared to Akamai."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"

"It is not too pricey."

"The solution is expensive."

"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."

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

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

"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."

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

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

"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."

"Akamai is very expensive."

"Cost depends on the volume of traffic."

"The solution is expensive."

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

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

"Akamai Web Application Protector is an expensive product."

"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."

More Akamai App and API Protector pricing and cost advice

"The product has an affordable cost."

"The pricing is 50% less than Akamai."

"Signal Sciences is pretty cheap compared to other solutions."

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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

Manufacturing Company

13%

Retailer

11%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

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.

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...

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...

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 Signal Sciences?

The pricing is very competitive compared to other providers. The pricing is definitely a factor in our decision-makin...

What needs improvement with Signal Sciences?

We do use it, but the UI can be improved as we mostly work through the CI/CD. It provides support, but sometimes it i...

What is your primary use case for Signal Sciences?

The CDN is for caching and The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) is for protecting the servers from ma...

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Product Reports

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Download Cloudflare Web Application Firewall product report

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

Akamai App and API Protector

Download Akamai App and API Protector product report

The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences)

February 2026

The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) report

Download The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF

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

Signal Sciences Next-Gen WAF, Signal Sciences RASP

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

The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) provides web application and API protection, RASP, rate limiting, bot protection and DDoS purpose built to eliminate the challenges of legacy WAF.

Fastly

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk

Douglas Omaha Technology Commission, ZALORA, PrintPlanet

Chef, Adobe, Datadog, Etsy, GrubHub, Vimeo, SendGrid, Under Armour, Duo, AppNexus

Akamai App and API Protector vs. The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences)