Akamai App and API Protector vs F5 Advanced WAF comparison

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Akamai Logo
5,056 views|3,843 comparisons
100% willing to recommend
F5 Logo
12,122 views|9,561 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).
770,428 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
"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.""Adaptive stream delivery and WAF protection are valuable.""The solution can scale extremely well.""All the solution's features are very good.""The most valuable feature is the DDoS protection, which is the main reason we got it.""The product has a good user interface.""Everything will be handled by Akamai's system before it reaches our infrastructure.""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."

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"The anti-bot protection is the solution's most valuable feature. Safe-guard or credential staffing are also useful features.""F5's user-friendly interface and seamless integration stand out as the most valuable features for us.""The most valuable features of this solution are the WAF protection, Data Safe, and the seven-layer DDoS.""The solution is stable.""F5 Advanced WAF helps our engineers to learn the complete configuration, including fundamental and advanced policies.""The most valuable features of the F5 Advanced WAF are the enhanced ASM and the performance. Additionally, the usability and effectiveness are very good.""The web application firewall itself is most valuable. It provides positive security and negative security. In negative security, it blocks a task such as cross-site scripting, code injection, etc. In positive security, it lets you specify and enforce things, such as the parameters allowed in username and password fields and the number of characters allowed in a field.""F5 technical support is excellent. They are experts who always provide the right solution, and they understand the problem. Their response and resolution times are good."

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Cons
"The performance of the cloud monitoring tool is low.""A lot of piracy happens in India and other countries. If there is a product for protection from piracy, it would be great. For example, there are multiple hackers that hack your event, and there are some channels that pirate and publish the event on some other website. We protect our streaming through DRM and different technologies. We are also protecting the website, but hacking is still happening. If they can work on protecting from piracy, it would be great.""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.""They are already very flexible, but room for improvement is there. Reports generation could be better and should 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 custom rules must be improved.""I do not see any area for improvement. Akamai is already maintaining its own databases for the security concerns, vulnerabilities, and attacks that are there. If anything, they should have a solution in the infrastructure security area as well. They should not be only in cloud cybersecurity; they should also be in infrastructure security.""The solution could offer even more integrations."

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"One thing that can be improved, is to increase the quantity over predefine policy.""You have to buy another module with an extra license, to have the authentication feature.""The solution's dashboard could be improved. When you're moving from policy to policy, the logs and the integration of the logs in other systems aren't straightforward.""This solution can be made more user-friendly.""It should be a little bit easy to deploy in terms of the overall deployment session. One of our customers is a bit unhappy about the reporting options. Currently, it automatically deletes event logs after some limit if a customer doesn't have any external Syslog server. It is a problem for those customers who want to review event logs after a week or so because they won't get proper reports or event logs. They should increase the duration to at least a month or two for storing the data on the device. F5 is not a leader in Gartner Quadrant, which affects us when we go and pitch this solution. Customers normally go and take a look at such annual reports, and because F5 is currently not there as a leader, the customers ask about it even though we are saying it is good in all things. F5 is not known for something totally different or unique. They were a major player in ADP, and they are just rebranding themselves into security. They should improve or increase their marketing as a security company now. They have already started to do that, but they should do it more so that when it comes to security, customers can easily remember F5. At the moment, if we say F5, load balancing comes to mind. With rebranding and marketing, all customers should get the idea that F5 is now mainly focusing on the security part of it, and it is a security company instead of load balancing. This is the first solution that should come to a customer's mind for a web application firewall.""I would like to see additional controls.""Compatibility with multiple cloud environments needs improvement. Both stability and scalability need to be improved.""The interface is old-looking, it's not modern, which is why it's not always comfortable to use."

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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 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
    5,056
    Comparisons
    3,843
    Reviews
    16
    Average Words per Review
    669
    Rating
    8.6
    Views
    12,122
    Comparisons
    9,561
    Reviews
    22
    Average Words per Review
    415
    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 Company7%
    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 Provider7%
    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.
    770,428 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.