Imperva vs Akamai
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Imperva and Akamai.
Quick Verdict
3.2/5
Imperva
0 reviews
4.1/5
Akamai
0 reviews
Akamai is rated higher (4.1 vs 3.2). Imperva provides enterprise WAF, DDoS protection, bot management, and API security, now part of Thales. 13 Tbps DDoS scrubbing capacity across 61 data centers. Quote-based pricing. Akamai invented the CDN industry in 1998. 340,000+ servers in 130+ countries. Enterprise CDN, edge security, and media delivery at massive scale. Acquired Linode for cloud compute.
Imperva Enterprise WAF and DDoS protection |  Akamai The original CDN — 4,400+ edge PoPs across 130+ countries | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.2 (0 reviews) | 4.1 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | paid | paid |
| Starting price | Free tier available | Free tier available |
| Best for | Enterprises in financial services, large e-commerce, and regulated industries needing proven WAF, bot management, and volumetric DDoS protection with contractual SLAs | Global media and streaming platforms, gaming backends, and attack-prone enterprises that need the largest edge footprint and top-tier DDoS scrubbing under enterprise contracts |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ✓ | |
| DDoS protection | ||
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ||
| Tags | ||
| Tags | ddos protectionteam featuressso | ddos protectioneu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenter |
| Visit Imperva → | Visit Akamai → | |
Imperva
Pros
- + 13 Tbps scrubbing capacity across 61 DDoS-resilient data centers with full security stack at every PoP
- + Contractual 3-second mitigation SLA for Layer 3 and 4 DDoS attacks
- + Deep portfolio: WAF, bot management, API security, client-side protection, and data-security analytics
- + Thales ownership and a 20+ year track record suit regulated industries and long procurement cycles
- + 260+ built-in integrations with SIEM, Splunk, CMDB, and SOAR tooling
Cons
- - Quote-only pricing with no free tier or public price list
- - Configuration complexity requires real security-engineering effort to tune
- - Console sprawl and legacy/current branding overlap after years of product accretion
- - Module-by-module packaging makes full-platform cost hard to predict
- - Overkill for small deployments that a CDN-tier WAF would cover
Akamai
Pros
- + Unmatched edge reach: 4,400+ PoPs across 130+ countries and 1,200+ networks
- + Prolexic DDoS scrubbing is the industry reference: 20+ Tbps dedicated capacity, zero-second mitigation, 100% platform availability SLA
- + Two decades-plus of delivery track record at the largest media and event scale
- + Aggressive egress pricing on the Akamai Cloud compute side, inherited from the Linode acquisition
- + Edge compute (EdgeWorkers, Functions) plus core and distributed compute regions under one network
Cons
- - No public pricing — quote-based enterprise procurement with real sales-cycle overhead
- - Not an option for individuals, small businesses, or anyone who wants self-serve onboarding
- - Dense, modular product catalog that is easy to over-buy or misconfigure
- - Volume commitments can make traffic overruns expensive
- - Compute breadth is thin compared with AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud
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