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Akamai App and API Protector vs Uplynk comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 15, 2026

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 ...
Sponsored
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Akamai App and API Protector
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
23rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (10th), Cloud and Data Center Security (16th)
Uplynk
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
28th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Data Replication (8th), CDN (8th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (16th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 3.8%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai App and API Protector is 2.9%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Uplynk is 1.3%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall3.8%
Akamai App and API Protector2.9%
Uplynk1.3%
Other92.0%
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

DB
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.
Gavin Pinho - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
AliKhalil - PeerSpot reviewer
manager at a non-profit with 501-1,000 employees
Reliable live streaming has increased our continuous viewership and maintained audience trust
Uplynk is deployed in my organization on-premises and is fully on-site. Uplynk supports our business continuity or disaster recovery plans because it's really well protected and it doesn't lag or crash when there's a spike in all areas. Uplynk helps us comply with regulatory requirements in our industry by keeping us live. Uplynk integrates really well with other systems or tools we use. You need a whole team to really run Uplynk because there are so many moving pieces, the code, the app, and other components. My experience with Uplynk's analytics or reporting capabilities is that they are especially helpful to update the teams and our stakeholders. I would describe Uplynk's flexibility or customization options as really easy, really customizable, and it integrates in many areas. Uplynk helps me deliver content to different devices or platforms by allowing us to upload on and stay live on tablets, computers, and televisions. It allows us to stay live to get those viewerships. Uplynk is a software that saves time, but you need a solid team to run Uplynk to ensure viewership and everything is moving because there are many pieces to keep. I advise others looking into using Uplynk that it takes many different areas: coding, integration, APIs, and all that. It takes a team to run it, and you need to be a big company. If you're streaming and doing all that at a big scale, use it. If you're on a smaller scale, Uplynk is going to be really hard for you to manage. It's not something that's simple; just use the ones that are basic out there if you're an influencer and things like that. I would rate this product a nine overall.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Someone with a basic understanding of networking and security will be able to implement the firewall's basic features within 15 minutes."
"The Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's most valuable feature is its ease of configuration."
"I have not had any issues with this solution, and I would recommend it to others who are interested in using it."
"The integration of Cloudflare with Cloud Suite is its most valuable feature."
"The security features are valuable. The particular feature we use is called OWASP."
"I'm highly satisfied. It's remarkably user-friendly, enabling me to quickly identify issues, and deploy solutions, and it offers the necessary features."
"The rate limiting features and customizations in terms of URL match and applying policies are valuable to me."
"There is a huge signature repository"
"The product has a good user interface."
"Akamai Web Application Protector is exceptionally stable; after all, it is Akami."
"The most valuable feature is the DDoS protection, which is the main reason we got it."
"Akamai Web Application Protector is a good solution that provides basic web application protection."
"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."
"I have contacted the support team of Akamai... I am happy with their responses and answers to my problems."
"It is scalable for DDoS."
"I would recommend this solution to potential users."
"The product is easy to use and easy to implement."
"The Rules Engine V4 is the most valuable feature."
"Without EdgeCast, our website was taking 10 to 15 seconds to load; with EdgeCast, it loads under five seconds and it's a good product."
"The tool's most valuable feature is the Uplynk platform for streaming purposes."
"I recommend this solution because, for me, it's one of the most efficient and performant CDN operators."
"It's super easy to use and integrate with."
"Uplynk has positively impacted our organization by bringing us more viewership, as it does not glitch and stays stable during spikes in viewership, leading to approximately a 15 to 20 percent increase in viewership because there's no lag and nothing fails."
"The customer support and service responsiveness were excellent."
 

Cons

"Support can be challenging at times."
"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."
"The user interface is very simple and straightforward, but users need knowledge about DNS to accomplish tasks."
"They have some limitations with third-party integrations."
"The solution's learning curve can still be further reduced"
"The learning curve was steep initially."
"I have experienced some difficulties with Cloudflare's support as a customer based in India."
"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."
"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."
"Customer support has room for improvement."
"The product really isn't very user-friendly."
"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 product should provide a secure NTP."
"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."
"They are already very flexible, but room for improvement is there. Reports generation could be better and should be improved."
"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."
"The web interface of the Verizon Edgecast portal is very old. It's not user-friendly, slow, and it is missing some valuable features like the ability to make bulk changes."
"To improve Uplynk, it should be made more user-friendly, as it takes a lot of moving pieces to make it work."
"The pricing was initially very expensive."
"In the next release, I would like to see more global endpoints for their CDN and a lower price."
"The comparable features that we are looking at fits into Cloudflare's free version, as opposed to Verizon EdgeCast, which we are paying for."
"The tool needs to resolve its lack of innovation."
"We could not create more than 15 custom rules."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."
"It is not too pricey."
"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."
"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."
"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."
"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."
"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."
"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"
"The solution is not expensive."
"There is no license at all for Akamai. They are going to charge us only for the usage."
"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."
"The solution is expensive."
"The product’s price is high."
"Akamai is very expensive."
"It's more expensive than others, but the ROI is good for large-scale infrastructure."
"Be careful about the options because to have all the features can be very expensive."
"When I modeled it out, we are spending somewhere between $600 to $800 a month with Verizon EdgeCast."
"The product is cheaper compared to other solutions."
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908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Performing Arts
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
17%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise18
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

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 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 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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Edgio Global CDN?
I wasn't a part of the pricing, setup cost, and licensing discussions, but from what I heard from my colleagues, they...
What needs improvement with Edgio Global CDN?
To improve Uplynk, it should be made more user-friendly, as it takes a lot of moving pieces to make it work. Uplynk i...
What is your primary use case for Edgio Global CDN?
My main use case for Uplynk is live channels around the clock. Since we're in the television business, we're constant...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF
Akamai Web Application Protector, Akamai Kona Site Defender, Akamai Kona DDoS Defender
Edgio, Limelight Content Delivery, Limelight Orchestrate Delivery, Limelight Origin Storage, Global CDN, Verizon EdgeCast
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
Douglas Omaha Technology Commission, ZALORA, PrintPlanet
TD Ameritrade, Plus500, Solvay Bank, Yahoo, Deckers Brands, and Coach
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai App and API Protector vs. Uplynk and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.