Akamai WAF: Complete List of Pros and Cons

Could your web app be under attack as we speak? Cyber attackers and automated bots are moving in the shadows, quietly looking for weak spots, outdated plugins, and misconfigurations in your application to exploit.

However, these threats don’t always resemble what we see in movies. Sometimes, it’s just a script trying hundreds of usernames and passwords. Other times, it’s a code injection that quietly steals data.

Many organizations rely on web application firewalls (WAFs) to build a defense against these threats, and one of the most well-known options is Akamai WAF. It runs on Akamai’s massive global network and offers strong protection against common attacks like SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and CSRF.

But is it the right fit for your business? Here’s one reason to care: the application security market is expected to reach $8.53 billion in revenue by 2025, so investing in securing your apps is more critical than ever.

Akamai WAF: What is it?

Akamai WAF is a cloud-based web application firewall that helps safeguard websites, web apps, and APIs from online threats. It sits between your users and your application, filtering out harmful traffic before it reaches your servers.

It works by inspecting incoming HTTP and HTTPS requests in real time. If something looks suspicious, like a SQL injection attempt, a bot scraping your site, or a cross-site scripting (XSS) attack, Akamai WAF blocks it immediately. Because it runs on Akamai’s massive global edge network, this protection happens close to the user with minimal latency.

Akamai WAF is part of a broader solution called App & API Protector. It combines firewall protection, DDoS mitigation, bot management, and API security into one platform, allowing organizations to improve their security in a single place without managing multiple tools.

WAFs act as a crucial component of your suite of developer productivity tools by automating threat mitigation and reducing the overhead of manual security tasks. Letting a WAF like Akamai filter harmful traffic before it reaches your servers allows developers to focus on building and deploying applications, rather than constantly reacting to security incidents.

Key Features of Akamai WAF

Edge-Based Protection: Runs on Akamai’s globally distributed edge servers, reducing the load on your origin and stopping threats before they get close.
Real-Time Threat Detection: Uses constantly updated threat intelligence to identify and block new and emerging attacks. Akamai WAF is a good option when used in conjunction with other security best practices, such as penetration testing and regular vulnerability assessments.
Automatic Rule Updates: Akamai manages and updates WAF rules regularly, so you don’t have to fine-tune every policy manually.
Bot Management Integration: Helps you detect and control automated traffic, like credential stuffing bots or web scrapers.
API Security: Secures APIs using schema validation, rate limiting, and detection of abnormal usage patterns.
DDoS Protection: Built-in defenses against volumetric and application-layer DDoS threats.

Pros of Akamai WAF

1. Strong OWASP Top 10 and API Protection

Akamai WAF provides comprehensive protection against OWASP Top 10 threats, such as SQL injection, XSS, CSRF, and command injection. It supports schema validation for APIs to ensure that only correctly structured requests are processed. Akamai uses a positive security model, which means it only allows requests that match defined criteria. Everything else is denied.

Example: A malformed JSON API request like {"username": "admin", "password": 123456} is rejected because the schema expects a password string, not an integer.

2. Fast Zero-Day Protection and Virtual Patching

Akamai has a threat research team that pushes out virtual patches rapidly for newly discovered vulnerabilities. During Log4Shell (CVE-2021-44228), Akamai released an emergency rule (3000014) within 24 hours, which blocked exploit attempts at the edge before any patch could be applied.

Example: If your app uses a vulnerable library, you can apply Akamai’s virtual patch to block known exploit signatures, buying your team time to fix the code.

3. Low False Positives with Adaptive Security Engine

The Adaptive Security Engine uses machine learning and behavioral data to assess incoming requests in context. It self-tunes by learning your application's normal behavior and suggests updates to reduce false positives.

Example: If Akamai detects a specific path like /API/comments regularly triggers a rule but is legitimate traffic, it may recommend tuning the rule or creating a custom exception.

4. Built-in Bot and DDoS Mitigation

Akamai identifies bots using behavior analytics, fingerprinting, and real-time signature matching. It supports client reputation scoring, CAPTCHA challenges, and advanced bot controls when integrated with Bot Manager.

Example: A login endpoint under a credential stuffing attack can trigger a custom rate control policy that blocks further requests from that IP and issues a CAPTCHA to the client.

5. Global Edge Network for High Performance

Akamai WAF operates on a network of over 189,000 servers in 100+ countries. Traffic is inspected close to the user, reducing round-trip time and improving page load speed.

Example: An e-commerce app serving customers in Asia and North America can simultaneously provide fast and secure experiences from edge nodes in Tokyo and Chicago.

6. DevOps-Friendly Automation and Logging

Akamai provides APIs, Terraform providers, and CLI tools for CI/CD integration; protecting APIs is a crucial aspect of attack surface management. You can version and deploy WAF policies as code, improving repeatability and reducing manual errors.

Example: During the deployment of a new microservice, a CI/CD pipeline triggers a Terraform plan that includes updated security policies.

Cons of Akamai WAF

1. High Cost for Small to Mid-Sized Teams

Akamai WAF is priced for enterprises with annual contracts and usage-based models. Smaller teams may find it difficult to justify the cost, especially when alternative WAFs are available at lower tiers.

2. Complex Configuration and Setup

Initial setup often requires DNS changes and an understanding of match targets, exception rules, and custom policies. Teams must configure forwarded headers like True-Client-IP to retain original IP information.

3. Advanced Features May Require Add-Ons

Core WAF includes OWASP protections, but full bot mitigation, DDoS SLAs, and API Discovery require additional modules. Without Bot Manager, teams may not be able to differentiate good bots (like Googlebot) from malicious ones.

4. Cloud-Only Deployment Model

Akamai WAF is delivered via Akamai’s Edge. There is no on-premises option, which limits flexibility for hybrid environments or highly regulated sectors. For example, a government agency requiring on-prem WAFs for internal apps cannot deploy Akamai WAF within its private network.

5. Potential Latency or Outage Risks

While rare, Akamai outages can impact traffic globally due to centralized routing, so teams should plan DNS or routing failovers as a backup strategy. A fallback to a secondary CDN may be necessary during a regional network disruption.

6. Ecosystem Complexity

Akamai’s platform includes CDN, DNS, WAF, and other services, and teams using only WAF may find the UI and controls overwhelming. A tip is to use role-based access control (RBAC) to simplify the UI for security teams and avoid accidental configuration changes by developers.

Akamai WAF vs open-appsec: How do they stack up?

open-appsec is an open-source WAF and API security solution built for modern DevOps and DevSecOps teams. Unlike traditional WAFs that rely heavily on signatures, open-appsec uses a machine learning engine to detect and block threats, including zero-day attacks, in real time. It’s designed to be a “set and forget” solution, continuously learning the behavior of users and applications to improve detection accuracy while keeping false positives low.

Some of open-appsec’s standout features include:

Protection against OWASP Top 10 and zero-day attacks like Log4Shell, Spring4Shell, and Text4Shell.
Not signature-dependent, though signature support is available if needed.
ML-driven decision engine that adapts to application behavior to reduce alert fatigue and unnecessary tuning.
Anti-bot capabilities to stop credential stuffing, scraping, and other automated attacks early.
Cloud-native and easy to deploy via Kubernetes, Docker, or as a reverse proxy with flexible web-based management.

In contrast, Akamai WAF, while offering robust protection and a comprehensive feature set, primarily relies on signature-based detection and requires more manual tuning and configuration, which may increase operational overhead compared to open-appsec's automated, ML-driven approach.

open-appsec is an open-source project that builds on machine learning to provide pre-emptive web app & API threat protection against OWASP Top 10 and zero-day attacks. It simplifies maintenance as there is no threat signature upkeep and exception handling, like common in many WAF solutions.

To learn more about how open-appsec works, see this White Paper and the in-depth Video Tutorial. You can also experiment with deployment in the free Playground.