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Akamai Bot Manager vs Imperva Application Security Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 22, 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

Akamai Bot Manager
Ranking in Bot Management
2nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Imperva Application Securit...
Ranking in Bot Management
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
144
Ranking in other categories
CDN (2nd), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (4th), API Security (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Bot Management category, the mindshare of Akamai Bot Manager is 10.8%, down from 18.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Imperva Application Security Platform is 15.7%, down from 17.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Bot Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Imperva Application Security Platform15.7%
Akamai Bot Manager10.8%
Other73.5%
Bot Management
 

Featured Reviews

Denis Burnaev - PeerSpot reviewer
SecOps Engineer at El Al
Uses real-time dashboards to manage bot traffic and has provided a reliable first layer of defense
Because we are an airline, we have various attacks on our website and application, and we really have to involve our experience and try to find attacks by ourselves. These days attacks are very sophisticated and they are trying to manipulate in the same way as humans, so the anomaly feature is not really helpful. Bots are very clever these days and they move through the website the way humans do. We are not really using it because again, the attacks are sophisticated. We need something that involves different AI models that can try to find similarity in all the data that we are getting from Akamai Bot Manager to understand where exactly we can find similarities between the ways bots are reacting on the website. The most valued feature these days is getting research on all the data as fast as possible and trying to find similarities to understand which bots are trying to manipulate or abuse my website. We are going toward AI solutions because it is the fastest, but it should be a very sophisticated model. Bots these days move the way humans do, so it's really hard to understand which of them is a bot and which is human. Bots can go through the challenges you are putting on the website, and it seems nothing can stop them.
ST
Senior Cybersecurity Consultant at Cyberoutcome Limited
Strong policies and bot defenses have secured critical APIs and have reduced attack noise
From my research regarding the IAM space that Imperva Application Security Platform is trying to look into, I believe they still need to do a lot of modeling and modification to make sure that also helps. There are several competitors in the IAM space, so Imperva would do well if they can do some basic modeling and modifications from my own personal research and my own experience in the IAM space. Alternatively, they could actually just focus on trying to be stronger in the web application space and the database activity monitoring space.The main reason it is not a perfect ten is regarding support. At times, having to reach the support team takes eight hours to ten hours maximum. There are times when clients could have urgent issues to attend to. The support team could do more by having a faster response rate.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Akamai Bot Manager is helping us understand how many bots are accessing our websites or applications, and we can manage the dashboard to differentiate on a quick view and see how much good bots get access compared to bad bots trying to reach our website."
"Akamai Bot Manager has two valuable features: BMS (Bot Manager Standard) and BMP (Bot Manager Premier)."
"Akamai Bot Manager is very easy to scale. Adding new domains or subdomains is a super easy process."
"The best feature is the BNP. That is what Manager Premium does, protection of transactional endpoints."
"Akamai Bot Manager has more advanced rules that allow it to detect and block bot scrapers."
"We absolutely require a WAF and a Bot Manager, and this service is operational."
"The most valuable features of Akamai Bot Manager are the seamless integration and accuracy with which it detects the bots that can make attacks."
"In terms of the security provided, the benefits from the use of the product are immediately visible."
"Scalability is pretty easy on the base platform; you just add another, and you're ready to go."
"It is a stable solution."
"The valuable features of Imperva WAF include its effective security breach prevention through automatically updating rules."
"An improvement has been to our website: It increases the speed of our response, the capacity of the site, and optimizes the bandwidth."
"Imperva Application Security Platform positively impacts us because we have a critical website, so by placing a WAF of Imperva's quality, it allows us to have visibility and granular control over the various attacks that can occur on the website."
"On the real time, you can see live traffic, which is flowing into our website."
"One good thing about Imperva Web Application Firewall is it can be on the cloud and also it can be on-premise."
"IncapRules is one of the most valuable features, as you can create your own security and access control rules on top of your security policy. Using IncapRules we were able to easily block Layer 7 DDoS attacks several times."
 

Cons

"Akamai Bot Manager Premier has some additional functionalities, particularly for web telemetry, but they don't have it for app telemetry."
"There are other rules that are user-friendly, however, many of the things have a learning curve."
"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 can improve by having better SDK integration. SDK would be required to integrate with any mobile applications and if they are able to make that more seamless, it will help."
"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."
"The anomaly feature is not really helpful. Bots are very clever these days and they move through the website the way humans do."
"In my opinion, the UI of Akamai Bot Manager is a bit unconventional and not as intuitive as one might expect."
"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."
"Analytics in the area of risk need to be improved to supply more information to the users for creating better environments."
"They once terminated a free account without warning, resulting in a few days downtime."
"The firewall aspect of the solution needs improvement."
"The reporting is missing some features, such as: only two export formats, and the time period does not include the last day, week, year."
"Imperva always needs to adjust to new versions of cyber attacks, it needs to be faster, improve the resiliency of the software of the solution."
"The UI interface needs improvement."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall could improve the console by making it easier to use."
"The solution needs to improve Integration with third parties for their on-prem deployment models. The integration is not that good yet."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have to pay a bundled cost."
"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."
"The price of Akamai Bot Manager could improve."
"Akamai Bot Manager requires a separate license that sits on top of Kona or Akamai Web Application Protector."
"Akamai Bot Manager is a very expensive solution."
"Make sure you understand the way that Imperva charges. It's very affordable. However, I would like to see a package with the Virtual Patching included. You get to do patching separately."
"The license is on a yearly basis."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall's pricing is expensive."
"There is a license or subscription renewal that our customers pay."
"The price of this solution is a little bit high compared to competitors."
"We have an issue with Imperva Incapsula in the Iraqi market because of the high price."
"Varies depending on the needs of the customer."
"We sell three-year licenses for Imperva Web Application Firewall to our customers. The price is a little expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Retailer
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business88
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise69
 

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?
Because we are an airline, we have various attacks on our website and application, and we really have to involve our experience and try to find attacks by ourselves. These days attacks are very sop...
What is your primary use case for Akamai Bot Manager?
I'm working at an airline company, so Akamai Bot Manager has been used in our company for approximately 20 years.
Which Web Application Firewall (WAF) would you recommend? R&S or Imperva?
Imperva is a strong choice, given their security focus and ongoing R&D into the product in areas such as bot management.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Imperva DDoS?
The pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Imperva DDoS are reasonable for the amount of technical capabilities provided. I would rate the pricing of Imperva DDoS as five, where one is very cheap a...
What needs improvement with Imperva DDoS?
I would like to see improvements in the pooling of threats and attacks, possibly to enlarge the scale of indicators of compromise. For example, the initiation of an attack on the endpoint level cou...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Imperva Bot Management, Imperva Web Application Firewall, Imperva API Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Luisa Via Roma, Gymgrossisten, Rakuten, U.S. News & World Report, Japan Airlines
Hitachi, BNZ, Bitstamp, Moz, InnoGames, BTCChina, Wix, LivePerson, Zillow and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai Bot Manager vs. Imperva Application Security Platform and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.