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

Akamai and Fastly are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Akamai is ranked #16 with an average rating of 8.0, while Fastly is ranked #25 with an average rating of 8.0. Akamai holds a 3.0% mindshare in WAF, compared to Fastly’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Akamai users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 60% of Fastly users who would recommend it.

Akamai App and API Protector

Read 29 Akamai App and API Protector reviews

4,499 Views
2,654 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (po...

Read 4 The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) reviews

992 Views
873 Comparison Views

60% willing to recommend

Akamai App and API Protector

The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (po...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Fastly Next-Gen WAF and Akamai App and API Protector compete in the application and API security category. Akamai has the upper hand in terms of advanced features, making it more favorable for enterprises needing comprehensive security.

Features: Fastly Next-Gen WAF provides robust threat intelligence, intuitive configuration, and aims to deliver security with ease. Akamai App and API Protector offers comprehensive protection, scalability for diverse environments, and advanced threat detection.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Fastly Next-Gen WAF is known for simple deployment and prompt customer service. Akamai offers efficient deployment with flexibility in handling varied architectures and quality support.

Pricing and ROI: Fastly Next-Gen WAF features attractive setup costs and solid ROI, emphasizing cost-effectiveness. Akamai's higher initial costs are balanced by substantial ROI, driven by its extensive feature set.

To learn more, read our detailed Akamai App and API Protector vs. The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

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

February 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

Akamai App and API Protector

Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)

16th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (8th), Cloud and Data Center Security (12th)

The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (po...

Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)

25th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

4.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Akamai App and API Protector is 3.0%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) is 1.2%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Akamai App and API Protector	3.0%
The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences)	1.2%
Other	95.8%

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

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.

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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

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

"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."

"It enables us to move faster with new products because we have this layer of protection set up in our infrastructure."

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

"The features are powerful and better than F5."

"The product is user-friendly."

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

More Akamai App and API Protector pros

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

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

"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."

"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."

Cons

"Support and the pricing need to improve."

"The custom rules must be improved."

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

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

"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."

"Customer support has room for improvement."

"The interface is a little bit clunky and can be improved."

"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."

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

"Akamai Web Application Protector is an expensive product."

"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."

"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."

"The product’s price is high."

"Akamai is very expensive."

"Cost depends on the volume of traffic."

"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."

"There is no license at all for Akamai. They are going to charge us only for the usage."

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

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

Performing Arts

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	4
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	18

No data available

Questions from the Community

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 slight difference.

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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 comprehensive in their current state.

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 Signal Sciences?

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

See all answers

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 is hard to navigate unless you are very familiar with it.

See all answers

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 malicious traffic. They both perform different jobs and serve different purposes, ...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 5% of the time

AWS WAF vs Akamai App and API Protector

Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 15% of the time

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Compared 14% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences)

Compared 11% of the time

Azure Web Application Firewall vs The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences)

Compared 10% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences)

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Akamai App and API Protector

February 2026

Download Akamai App and API Protector product report

Buyer's Guide

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

January 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

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

Signal Sciences Next-Gen WAF, Signal Sciences RASP

Overview

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

Douglas Omaha Technology Commission, ZALORA, PrintPlanet

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

Buyer's Guide

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

February 2026

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

Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai App and API Protector vs. The Fastly Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.

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