Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Akamai App and API Protector vs Wallarm NG WAF comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

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)
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (4th), Cloud and Data Center Security (10th)
Wallarm NG WAF
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
38th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
API Security (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Akamai App and API Protector is 3.6%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Wallarm NG WAF is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

Deepesh  Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Bot Manager and different features to manage threats
As a product, it has good capabilities, including professional support. However, it's risky for us to rely on AI for real-time traffic management. We use in-house analytics but avoid automatic actions due to their high impact. For example, I live in a developing country. Everyone has different types of phones, apps, and everything else. So, if someone is using a legacy phone, that is still a use case here. If AI decides that this is an end-of-life phone or end-of-life Android operating system, it starts blocking that traffic. We may potentially lose millions or probably thousands and hundreds of thousands of hits per second. Everything is all about how well we serve payments because we're into payments. So, AI is used for analytics but not for real-time decisions. We can't afford to block traffic based on AI models due to the variety of devices and operating systems our users have.
it_user796242 - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps us to monitor attacks to our sites and prevents a lot of them
Set up Wallarm as a reverse proxy. Do not replace your web server. Use Wallarm first in monitoring mode, then learn from Wallarm which type of request is false positive and which type of request is not. This process takes a couple of weeks for very highly-loaded web applications (few millions of unique visitors in one month). Then you can turn Wallarm into blocking mode and everything will be fine. Do not forget to build a monitoring system, the wave, and API for it. Before we started using Wallarm, I already knew Ivan (CEO) and Stepan (COO) from a couple of years before. Ivan had his own security company and Stepan was working on a Russian security magazine called Xakep. They told us that they wanted to create a new WAF and already had a working version of it. They asked me to test it. We did tests, and it was really good. After few month after testing, we signed an agreement. Our choice was made not because we knew these guys for a long time, but because the product was really cool and we were glad to start using it as one of the first on the market!

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Akamai Web Application Protector is a good solution that provides basic web application protection."
"The solution can scale extremely well."
"The product is user-friendly."
"I have contacted the support team of Akamai... I am happy with their responses and answers to my problems."
"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 support that we got from their technical team has been fantastic. I have never experienced this level of support from other CDN providers."
"All the solution's features are very good."
"We are getting security for each and every API."
"Helps us to monitor situation in regards to attacks to our sites and prevents a lot of them."
 

Cons

"Support and the pricing need to improve."
"The performance of the cloud monitoring tool is low."
"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."
"It would be better if there weren't any issues with latency. We had latency issues, but I think they are all solved now."
"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 product should provide a secure NTP."
"The custom rules must be improved."
"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 biggest problem for us was the stability and speed using the first version of Wallarm. Now, it is fine."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Akamai is very 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."
"Its price is at the medium level. It is not very high. It is also not very low. It serves the purpose."
"Akamai Web Application Protector is an expensive product."
"One reason not all people use Akamai is that it is a little bit more expensive than some other providers."
"The product is expensive, but it is worth the money."
"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."
"​Pricing must be cheaper than the competition and the licensing must be good.​"
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.
856,278 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
5%
Computer Software Company
17%
Government
13%
Insurance Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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.
What needs improvement with Akamai Web Application Protector?
It could have better analytics and reporting visibility in the OEM console.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Akamai Web Application Protector, Akamai Kona Site Defender, Akamai Kona DDoS Defender
Wallarm NG-WAF
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Douglas Omaha Technology Commission, ZALORA, PrintPlanet
Panasonic. Miro. Rappi. Wargaming. Gannett. Omio. Acronis. Workforce Software. Tipalti. SEMRush.
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai App and API Protector vs. Wallarm NG WAF and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,278 professionals have used our research since 2012.