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Akamai Bot Manager vs F5 Shape Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 3, 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 Bot Manager
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Bot Management (2nd)
F5 Shape Security
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Fraud Detection and Prevention (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

Akamai Bot Manager and F5 Shape Security aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Akamai Bot Manager is designed for Bot Management and holds a mindshare of 9.7%, down 18.9% compared to last year.
F5 Shape Security, on the other hand, focuses on Fraud Detection and Prevention, holds 1.6% mindshare, down 2.1% since last year.
Bot Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Akamai Bot Manager9.7%
Imperva Application Security Platform15.7%
Cloudflare One9.2%
Other65.4%
Bot Management
Fraud Detection and Prevention Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
F5 Shape Security1.6%
ThreatMetrix4.9%
Riskified3.4%
Other90.1%
Fraud Detection and Prevention
 

Featured Reviews

RituRaj - PeerSpot reviewer
SDE 2 at Virtusa
Advanced bot defense has protected critical APIs and improves user trust and performance
In terms of improvement, overall, Akamai Bot Manager is a strong solution, but there are a few areas where it could be improved. One is the learning curve for new users because the platform offers many configuration options and detailed analytics. It can take time for teams to become fully comfortable with tuning policies and interpreting reports. Another area for improvement is reporting and dashboard customization. While the existing visibility is very good, having more flexible and user-friendly reporting options would make it easier to create tailored views for different stakeholders. Additionally, more out-of-the-box guidance and recommendations for policy tuning could help organizations accelerate deployment and reduce the effort required during the initial setup. One additional area for improvement would be simplifying policy management for organizations that have many applications and APIs. As deployment grows, having more automation and AI-driven recommendations for policy tuning could help reduce administrative effort. One additional improvement I would mention is enhancing automation and operational efficiency. For example, more AI-driven recommendations for policy tuning, anomaly detection, and remediation actions could help the security team respond even faster to evolving bot threats.
Nikolay Dimitrov - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Engineer at Paysafe / IBM
Easy to configure and blocks bot attacks for web users
The solution is deployed on the F5 cloud. The solution's real-time analytics help you see what has been blocked. It helps to see whether the attack category was an automation attack or a fake browser. F5 Shape Security has a normal dashboard. We are doing F5 Shape Security migrations for 30 customers. F5 Shape Security uses Javascript. For a lot of competitors, the Javascript can be reverse-engineered by attackers to bypass the protection. F5 Shape Security has machine learning authentication of the Java script. If you had hacked it, the encryption would have been changed. It's really hard for attackers to reverse engineer the F5 Shape Security JavaScript. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best feature is the BNP. That is what Manager Premium does, protection of transactional endpoints."
"Akamai Bot Manager has two valuable features: BMS (Bot Manager Standard) and BMP (Bot Manager Premier)."
"We absolutely require a WAF and a Bot Manager, and this service is operational."
"Akamai Bot Manager detection is very good, we do not have false positives, and it is very accurate compared to other solutions, which is one of the reasons why we chose Akamai Bot Manager over other solutions."
"Akamai Bot Manager has more advanced rules that allow it to detect and block bot scrapers."
"Using Akamai Bot Manager, we detect all the attacks on our site, any application-related attack, and any DDoS or bot-related attacks, which can be anonymous traffic as well."
"Akamai Bot Manager is very easy to scale. Adding new domains or subdomains is a super easy process."
"In terms of the security provided, the benefits from the use of the product are immediately visible."
"F5 Shape Security's most valuable feature is performance."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the ease of configuration."
 

Cons

"The biggest friction point I have encountered with Akamai Bot Manager has been the occasional delay in bot detection updates."
"I would say there is definitely a need of improvement because I think some start of this year or even, like one and a half years. But now have enough resources at their end especially with the, advanced AI and everything. So they have enough resources to launch basic bot attacks. And whenever we do some type of fine tuning, they are always somehow able to evade it or just fly under the threshold. And from our end, we also have to maintain those threshold so that we still do not start blocking the real general customer. So every time when they try to do something else, we have to see their traffic patterns and then find you in our solution.When these bot attacks happen, what we have to do is we have to check their, traffic patterns, their IT sees and then do the proper analysis. And based on that, the fine tuning is done. So I would say, like, based on these bot traffic, if there is a automatic fine tuning. With the help of machine learning at all, then that would be much more easier of beneficial. So this needs improvement."
"Akamai Bot Manager Premier has some additional functionalities, particularly for web telemetry, but they don't have it for app telemetry."
"I feel that customer support has certain concerns where improvements are required."
"We cannot block illegitimate web scrapers because Akamai Bot Manager does not provide detailed information about various origins and remote VPNs they come through."
"The anomaly feature is not really helpful. Bots are very clever these days and they move through the website the way humans do."
"There is a clear need for improvement. Over the past year or so, we've observed an increase in the sophistication of attacks, with some occurring at the start of this year or even extending back one and a half years. Despite having ample resources, particularly with the advent of advanced AI, these entities can now execute basic bot attacks."
"There are other rules that are user-friendly, however, many of the things have a learning curve. This is not something you enter into lightly."
"I want the solution's custom exclusion rules to be more granular."
"The tool's price is high."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Akamai Bot Manager is a very expensive solution."
"You buy a license of the product based on a certain volume, but if you hit the volume and go above it, then you are charged additional for each GB you use. I think you need to pay 20,000 per month."
"Akamai Bot Manager requires a separate license that sits on top of Kona or Akamai Web Application Protector."
"We have to pay a bundled cost."
"The price of Akamai Bot Manager could improve."
"The solution is moderately priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Comms Service Provider
8%
University
8%
Retailer
7%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Healthcare Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Retailer
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise7
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Akamai Bot Manager?
Akamai Bot Manager is not cheap. From what I know, Akamai Bot Manager is not so cheap.
What needs improvement with Akamai Bot Manager?
In terms of improvement, overall, Akamai Bot Manager is a strong solution, but there are a few areas where it could be improved. One is the learning curve for new users because the platform offers ...
What is your primary use case for Akamai Bot Manager?
When it comes to my daily use case, I implement Akamai Bot Manager primarily to protect my public-facing web application and API from miscellaneous automated traffic. I was seeing issues with web s...
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Also Known As

No data available
Shape Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Luisa Via Roma, Gymgrossisten, Rakuten, U.S. News & World Report, Japan Airlines
Wells Fargo, Loblaw, JetBlue, Zoosk
Find out what your peers are saying about Imperva, Akamai, Cloudflare and others in Bot Management. Updated: May 2026.
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