When comparing Verisign vs Akamai, the Slant community recommends Akamai for most people. In the question“What are the best services to protect against DDoS attacks for startups?” Akamai is ranked 3rd while Verisign is ranked 5th. The most important reason people chose Akamai is:
Being one of the worlds largest CDNs, Akamai's large scale gives it a huge point of presence (PoP) to handle volumetric attacks.
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Pros
Pro Thorough and customized set up process
Verisign uses a very thorough set up process that can take weeks. This allows them to customize the payees service to their site/s in order to provide the best protection possible.
Pro Signature analysis, dynamic profiling and filtering of the OSI stack are used to detect DDoS attacks
Verisign uses a multitude of tools simultaneously to detect security breaches and DDoS attacks. By using signature analysis and dynamic profiling along with filtering of the OSI stack (in order to detect DDoS attacks that are not coming from the network layer) Verisign can easily detect attacks to then alert the user as well as start mitigating the attack.
Pro Large scale point of presence
Being one of the worlds largest CDNs, Akamai's large scale gives it a huge point of presence (PoP) to handle volumetric attacks.
Pro Deeply customizable rules
The Kona Site Defender rules are all customizable, with continuous updates from Akamai. This means you can see how they are protecting your site under the hood, and adjust them to your needs.
Pro Lots of dedicated bandwidth specifically for DDoS absorption
Through Prolexic's PLXedge, Akamai provides their customers with a total of 2.3 Tbps of dedicated DDoS absorption bandwidth.
Pro Rules for rate limiting
Akamai provides tools for rate controlling traffic segments based on their request rate behavior.
Pro Capped bursting fees
If a sudden attack sucks up a lot of bandwidth, the bandwidth costs are capped.
Pro Application layer protection
Akamai utilizes a proprietary web application firewall in order to provide scalable protection against application layer attacks.
Cons
Con No 24/7 live chat
Verisign does not offer 24/7 live chat for customer service, only 24/7 telephone and e-mail support.
Con Expensive
Akami's services cost more than triple comparative packages from other security companies. At 13k a month for DDoS protection, there are many other choices out there that cost less for the same protection.
Con Slower security rule propagation
Because of Akamai's large CDN structure, it can take some time for security rules to propagate, making it harder to adjust security responses on the fly.