Akamai App and API Protector vs F5 Advanced WAF comparison

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Akamai Logo
4,907 views|3,722 comparisons
100% willing to recommend
F5 Logo
11,906 views|9,375 comparisons
97% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Akamai App and API Protector and F5 Advanced WAF based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Akamai App and API Protector vs. F5 Advanced WAF Report (Updated: March 2024).
772,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
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.""The product is user-friendly.""All the solution's features are very good.""The solution easily identifies, delays, or allows business traffic.""The dashboard is the most interesting feature of the Akamai portal where you can have a detailed analysis of all the attacks that are happening. You can drill down an issue and see exactly what is happening, who are the bad guys attacking your website, and how Akamai is protecting the website. That is the most valuable feature.""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.""The most valuable feature is the DDoS protection, which is the main reason we got it.""The product has a good UI."

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"The most valuable features of F5 Advanced WAF are the overall capabilities, there is not a comparable solution on the market.""iRules are quite appealing when it comes to F5.""It can scale.""It's a fairly easy-to-use and user-friendly tool. My administrators and team also like its ability to customize the rules per the requirements.""The most valuable features of this solution are the WAF protection, Data Safe, and the seven-layer DDoS.""There are a lot of good features.""The valuable features vary from customers to customers. Some customers are okay with the basic features of the WAF, and some customers use advanced WAF with a few other features.""The solution isn't too expensive. The license allows you to license what you need and leave out what you don't need."

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Cons
"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.""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 solution could offer even more integrations.""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 performance of the cloud monitoring tool is low.""One thing I asked them is to integrate the API discovery product that they have and push that data into Akamai App and API Protector so that we do not have two types of reviews to identify the type of traffic. We already know the APIs that are frequently getting used, so analysis becomes easier. We can integrate both products and use them.""Support and the pricing need to improve."

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"Nevertheless, F5 products are generally considered to be hard to deploy.""We usually use a third-party tool for logging and reporting. It would be nice if we could do that right on this solution. They have one, but it's not very stable. Logging and reporting effectively would be a big enhancement.""I think the deployment templates can be better.""F5 Advanced WAF needs better integration within the application, like remote dashboards.""One thing that can be improved, is to increase the quantity over predefine policy.""One area for improvement in the product is its SSO integration, which posed challenges and required significant effort to resolve.""Its price should be better. It is expensive.""The pricing could be more flexible."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "There is no license at all for Akamai. They are going to charge us only for the usage."
  • "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."
  • "Cost depends on the volume of traffic."
  • "The solution is not expensive."
  • "The product’s price is high."
  • "The solution is expensive."
  • "Akamai Web Application Protector is an expensive product."
  • "Price-wise, I would say Akamai's pricing is competitive."
  • More Akamai App and API Protector Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The pricing is too high."
  • "I think the price is very high."
  • "After buying the program, you just pay for the support every year."
  • "Licensing fees for this solution are paid on a yearly basis."
  • "It's more expensive than other solutions and depending on the modules, there can be additional fees."
  • "F5 bundles up services and the bundle is what you pay for rather than individual components."
  • "Its price is fair. We have done a couple of deals where they were able to give some kind of discount to the customers. The price was initially high for the customers, but after a couple of negotiations, it came within their budget. They were happy with that."
  • "There are various plans available for Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF as a Service, including a trial version."
  • More F5 Advanced WAF Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The custom rules must be improved. If we have a domain to be monitored, we can use the solution to alert us if a certain specification is met. If we need only 20,000 transactions, but there are 40,000… more »
    Top Answer:It's a fairly easy-to-use and user-friendly tool. My administrators and team also like its ability to customize the rules per the requirements.
    Top Answer:The product is not so expensive. It depends on the assets.
    Top Answer:The self-service aspect could be improved. The user interface (UI) also seems a bit outdated. Making it more user-friendly would be beneficial.
    Ranking
    Views
    4,907
    Comparisons
    3,722
    Reviews
    16
    Average Words per Review
    669
    Rating
    8.6
    Views
    11,906
    Comparisons
    9,375
    Reviews
    22
    Average Words per Review
    409
    Rating
    8.6
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Akamai Web Application Protector, Akamai Kona Site Defender, Akamai Kona DDoS Defender
    Learn More
    Overview

    Akamai App & API Protector brings together web application firewall, bot mitigation, API security, and Layer 7 DDoS protection into a single solution. It quickly identifies vulnerabilities and mitigates threats across your entire web and API estates — even for the most complex distributed architectures. Recognized as the leading attack detection solution on the market, App & API Protector is easy to implement and use. It delivers automatic updates for security protections and provides holistic visibility into traffic and attacks.

    F5 Advanced WAF is a web application security solution for financial and government sectors, e-commerce, and public-facing websites. It offers protection against various attacks, including botnets, web scraping, and foreign entities. The solution can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud and is often used with other security tools. Its most valuable features include DDoS and DNS attack protection, SSL uploading, anomaly detection, and the ability to input custom rules. 

    F5 Advanced WAF has helped organizations to expose more services to the public while providing an extra layer of protection, preventing revenue loss, and securing connectivity.

    Sample Customers
    Douglas Omaha Technology Commission, ZALORA, PrintPlanet
    MAXIMUS, Vivo, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office, City Bank
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company21%
    Retailer16%
    Financial Services Firm16%
    Leisure / Travel Company11%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm28%
    Computer Software Company13%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Insurance Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm34%
    Computer Software Company25%
    Non Tech Company6%
    Media Company6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Government7%
    Comms Service Provider6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business15%
    Midsize Enterprise22%
    Large Enterprise63%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business16%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise71%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business31%
    Midsize Enterprise24%
    Large Enterprise45%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business19%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise65%
    Buyer's Guide
    Akamai App and API Protector vs. F5 Advanced WAF
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai App and API Protector vs. F5 Advanced WAF and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    772,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Akamai App and API Protector is ranked 8th in Web Application Firewall (WAF) with 27 reviews while F5 Advanced WAF is ranked 2nd in Web Application Firewall (WAF) with 55 reviews. Akamai App and API Protector is rated 8.4, while F5 Advanced WAF is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Akamai App and API Protector writes "Easy to learn and gives us a report of traffic". On the other hand, the top reviewer of F5 Advanced WAF writes "Flexible configuration, reliable, and highly professional support". Akamai App and API Protector is most compared with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall, Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, AWS WAF, Prolexic and AWS Shield, whereas F5 Advanced WAF is most compared with Fortinet FortiWeb, Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, AWS WAF, Imperva Web Application Firewall and F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM). See our Akamai App and API Protector vs. F5 Advanced WAF report.

    See our list of best Web Application Firewall (WAF) vendors.

    We monitor all Web Application Firewall (WAF) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.