CISO Tribune

Vendor comparison · 2 companies

Fastly vs Imperva

Fastly is an edge cloud platform that helps companies deliver fast, secure, and reliable digital experiences. Imperva sells an Application Security Platform that protects against application and API attacks without impacting legitimate users. CISO Tribune files both under WAF and WAAP, DDoS protection and Bot and abuse management. This page sets the two records side by side: what each sells, where it is based, who owns and funds it, the customers it names and its recent news, each fact numbered to its source.

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  • Fastly
  • Imperva
Fastly vs Imperva: Products, Customers and Funding Compared
FastlyFastly is an edge cloud platform that helps companies deliver fast, secure, and reliable digital experiences.fastly.comImpervaImperva sells an Application Security Platform that protects against application and API attacks without impacting legitimate users.imperva.com
What it sells
  • Next-Gen WAF[2][9][11]A web application firewall that monitors suspicious and anomalous web traffic.
  • DDoS Protection[5][6][10]Real-time visibility into and defense against common DDoS attacks.
  • API Discovery[10]A continuously-updating record of incoming API requests.
  • Managed Security[5][11]24/7 expert-managed WAF, bot, and DDoS threat protection.
  • AI Runtime Control[7][12]A unified control plane between applications and AI models.
  • Managed CDN[5]Fastly's managed cloud CDN deployed inside the customer's own network.
  • Professional Services[5]Expert help to migrate or optimize a delivery service.
  • Web Application Firewall (WAF)[9][12]Imperva WAF protects applications in any environment, cloud or on-premises.
  • Advanced Bot Protection[4][5][9][11][17]Imperva Advanced Bot Protection protects websites, mobile apps and APIs from sophisticated automated attacks.
  • API Security[4][5][9][17]Imperva API Security provides continuous protection of all APIs.
  • DDoS Protection[5][9][12]Imperva’s advanced DDoS protection defends against volumetric, protocol-based and Layer 7 attacks.
  • Client-Side Protection[9][13]Imperva Client-Side Protection safeguards against client-side attacks like formjacking, digital skimming and Magecart.
  • AI Application Security[5][14]Imperva AI Application Security is engineered for the unique architecture of LLMs.
  • Data Security Fabric[15]Imperva Data Security Fabric is purpose-built for hybrid multicloud environments.
  • Content Delivery Network[9]Imperva's Secure Content Delivery Network (CDN) accelerates the delivery of content and applications.
Categories
Headquarters
San Francisco, United States[4]Redwood Shores, United States[3]
Founded
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Ownership and funding
Public (NYSE: FSLY)[1][8]Owned by Thales[1][5][7][8][10]
Named customers
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Recent news
  • September 28, 2026Comcast and Fastly are working with NBCUniversal to run Fastly delivery software on Comcast's network for live streaming events on Peacock.[18]
  • September 21, 2026Fastly announced AI Runtime Control, AI Firewall and new API Security capabilities aimed at giving organizations visibility and control across their AI systems.[7]
  • June 10, 2026Fastly and Skyfire announced a partnership under which Skyfire integrated its identity and payment-backed credentials into Fastly's edge cloud platform.[19]
  • August 24, 2026Thales Imperva introduced the SSL Integration Center, a framework connecting Imperva Cloud WAF with certificate lifecycle management platforms, launching with a DigiCert integration.[19]
  • August 3, 2026Thales launched Imperva for AWS, which provides web application, API and bot protection for AWS environments.[6]
G2 and Gartner Peer Insights
  • G2: listed, seen November 3, 2026[8]
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
  • G2: listed, seen November 6, 2026[7]
  • Gartner Peer Insights: listed, seen November 6, 2026[8]
Who it fits
From its own pages, Fastly sells mainly to developers, security teams, and digital businesses. Fastly says its security products protect applications, APIs, and microservices, wherever they live. Fastly says it powers media brands with an open edge cloud platform for live and on-demand entertainment. Fastly Next-Gen WAF can be deployed in three different ways, including directly on customers' own web servers. Managed Security Professional is sold to customers that purchase Fastly Full-Site Delivery and Network Services Enterprise Support, along with either Next-Gen WAF or Edge Rate Limiting.From its own pages, Imperva sells mainly to organizations that need to protect applications and APIs in public or private cloud, hybrid and on-premises environments. Imperva addresses retail organizations that need to protect customers' data and secure applications, APIs, and cloud networks. Imperva addresses businesses aiming to comply with PCI DSS 4.0 standards while defending against client-side attacks. Imperva describes support for compliance in highly regulated industries across hybrid and multicloud environments. Imperva describes a purpose-built solution to secure AI applications for homegrown GenAI.
Last verified
September 27, 2026September 27, 2026

Where they overlap

  • WAF and WAAP is the primary category of both Fastly and Imperva; both are also filed under DDoS protection, Bot and abuse management and API security.
  • Both are headquartered in the United States.

Where they differ, field by field

  • Fastly lists Next-Gen WAF, DDoS Protection, API Discovery, Managed Security, AI Runtime Control and 2 more. Imperva lists Web Application Firewall (WAF), Advanced Bot Protection, API Security, DDoS Protection, Client-Side Protection and 3 more.
  • Fastly is headquartered in San Francisco, United States. Imperva is headquartered in Redwood Shores, United States.
  • Fastly is a public company listed on NYSE as FSLY. Imperva is owned by Thales.

How they differ

CISO Tribune files both Fastly and Imperva under WAF and WAAP as the primary category, with DDoS protection, bot and abuse management, and API security also listed for each. Fastly sells Next-Gen WAF, DDoS Protection, API Discovery, Managed Security, AI Runtime Control, Managed CDN and Professional Services. Imperva sells a Web Application Firewall, Advanced Bot Protection, API Security, DDoS Protection, Client-Side Protection, AI Application Security, Data Security Fabric and a Content Delivery Network.

Both companies address AI traffic: Fastly's AI Runtime Control is a control plane between applications and AI models, and Imperva's AI Application Security operates as a SaaS reverse proxy between applications and Large Language Models. Imperva also sells Data Security Fabric for hybrid multicloud environments, and Fastly's records show a Managed Security service with 24/7 expert-managed WAF, bot, and DDoS threat protection. Fastly describes itself as an edge cloud platform that combines CDN, security and edge computing. Imperva describes its Application Security Platform as protecting against application and API attacks.

Fastly is headquartered in San Francisco, United States, and is a public company listed on NYSE as FSLY. Imperva is headquartered in Redwood Shores, United States, and is owned by Thales. Fastly says it powers media brands, and on September 28, 2026 it was named as working with Comcast and NBCUniversal on live streaming events on Peacock. Imperva names BSE as a customer using its Application Security and Data Security products. On September 21, 2026, Fastly announced AI Runtime Control, AI Firewall and new API Security capabilities. On August 24, 2026, Thales Imperva introduced the SSL Integration Center, launching with a DigiCert integration.

What it sells: Fastly

What Next-Gen WAF does[2][9][11]
Fastly Next-Gen WAF protects, in real-time, against attacks directed at the applications and origin servers that customers specify. Next-Gen WAF can be deployed in three different ways. Next-Gen WAF continues to be powered by Signal Sciences technology.
What DDoS Protection does[5][6][10]
Fastly DDoS Protection provides real-time visibility into and defense against common Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. Fastly describes it as keeping customers performant and available without any required configuration.
What Managed Security does[5][11]
Fastly describes Managed Security as 24/7 expert-managed WAF, bot, and DDoS threat protection. Managed Security Professional provides continuous monitoring of included Fastly security products and proactive action by Fastly in the event of an identified security incident. Managed Security Professional includes enhanced access to Fastly's Customer Security Operations Center (CSOC).
What AI Runtime Control does[7][12]
ARC is a unified control plane that sits between applications and AI models, giving centralized visibility, governance, and control over all AI traffic. AI Firewall is a security module within ARC that protects AI-powered applications from prompt injection attacks with near-zero latency impact.

What it sells: Imperva

What Web Application Firewall (WAF) does[9][12]
Imperva says managed rules written and tested by the Imperva Threat Research team before deployment allow more than 94% of Imperva customers to deploy the Imperva WAF in blocking mode. Imperva’s Attack Analytics automatically correlates thousands of security alerts into narratives. Imperva’s Terraform provider automates Cloud WAF deployments.
What Advanced Bot Protection does[4][5][9][11][17]
Advanced Bot Protection safeguards websites, mobile apps and APIs from bot attacks, including all OWASP 21 Automated Threats. Imperva says its multi-layered approach detects malicious bots by combining direct client interrogation, behavior analysis, machine learning, connection characteristics and threat intelligence feeds.
What DDoS Protection does[5][9][12]
Imperva offers a guaranteed 3-second mitigation SLA for Layers 3 and 4 DDoS attacks. Imperva DDoS Protection for Networks shields entire infrastructures with 13 Tbps of multi-terabit scrubbing capacity. Imperva DDoS Protection for Websites works alongside a cloud web application firewall (WAF) to block attacks and malicious bots.
What Client-Side Protection does[9][13]
Imperva Client-Side Protection enables security teams to manage client-side resources and JavaScript while streamlining compliance with PCI DSS 4.0 requirements 6.4.3 and 11.6.1. Client-Side Protection automatically blocks known malicious domains based on data from the Imperva Threat Research Team.
What Data Security Fabric does[15]
Imperva Data Security Fabric protects all your data assets. Imperva data security reveals critical insight including sensitive data location, users, access, and risk. Imperva offers out-of-the-box support for over 100 data repositories, on-prem or in cloud.

Questions about Fastly and Imperva

What do Fastly and Imperva sell?
Fastly sells Next-Gen WAF, DDoS Protection, API Discovery, Managed Security, AI Runtime Control and 2 more. Imperva sells Web Application Firewall (WAF), Advanced Bot Protection, API Security, DDoS Protection, Client-Side Protection and 3 more.
Are Fastly and Imperva in the same category?
Yes. WAF and WAAP is the primary category of both on CISO Tribune.
Where are Fastly and Imperva headquartered?
Fastly is headquartered in San Francisco, United States. Imperva is headquartered in Redwood Shores, United States.
Who owns Fastly and Imperva?
Fastly is a public company listed on NYSE as FSLY. Imperva is owned by Thales.
Who are Fastly and Imperva sold to?
From its own pages, Fastly sells mainly to developers, security teams, and digital businesses. From its own pages, Imperva sells mainly to organizations that need to protect applications and APIs in public or private cloud, hybrid and on-premises environments.
What have Fastly and Imperva announced recently?
September 28, 2026: Comcast and Fastly are working with NBCUniversal to run Fastly delivery software on Comcast's network for live streaming events on Peacock. August 24, 2026: Thales Imperva introduced the SSL Integration Center, a framework connecting Imperva Cloud WAF with certificate lifecycle management platforms, launching with a DigiCert integration.

About Fastly

Fastly is an edge cloud platform that helps companies deliver fast, secure, and reliable digital experiences. Fastly combines CDN, security (including WAF and DDoS protection), and edge computing so teams can control how content and applications are delivered and protected in real-time. Fastly describes one programmable platform to scale AI systems, protect content from bots, and run the edge with natural language. Fastly describes Secure as protecting apps and APIs from AI-scale threats. Fastly says it powers millions of mission-critical applications in thousands of the world's most digitally-advanced companies.[3][5][6]

Fastly says its application security solutions are designed for security and resilience at global scale and help teams mitigate evolving threats and control bots. Fastly offers CDN for content delivery, WAF for application protection, DDoS mitigation, bot management, and edge compute solutions for running logic closer to users. Fastly says its products work together as a unified platform. Fastly refers to its global network as having 622 Tbps of capacity.[5][6]

Fastly Next-Gen WAF is a web application firewall that monitors for suspicious and anomalous web traffic and protects, in real-time, against attacks directed at the applications and origin servers that customers specify. Fastly Next-Gen WAF now collectively refers to the products previously known as the Signal Sciences Cloud WAF and Signal Sciences Next-Gen WAF. Fastly Next-Gen WAF continues to be powered by Signal Sciences technology. Next-Gen WAF identifies and tracks attacks across all of a customer's deployments and determines whether to flag the originating IP address as potentially problematic, rate limit the IP address or allow the request. Next-Gen WAF can be deployed in three different ways. The On-Prem WAF deployment consists of two components, the module and the agent. Cloud WAF deployment requires uploading a TLS certificate, adding an origin server using the Next-Gen WAF control panel, and updating DNS records. Next-Gen WAF customers receive threat intelligence through the Network Learning Exchange (NLX) feature, which adds a unique signal to information in the control panels.[9]

Fastly DDoS Protection provides real-time visibility into and defense against common Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. Fastly Client-Side Protection provides the ability to inventory and control resources such as scripts, images, and fonts.[10]

Fastly describes Managed Security as 24/7 expert-managed WAF, bot, and DDoS threat protection. Managed Security Professional provides continuous monitoring of included Fastly security products and proactive action by Fastly in the event of an identified security incident. Managed Security Professional includes enhanced access to Fastly's Customer Security Operations Center (CSOC) and periodic consultation with a Designated Security Specialist. Managed Security Professional includes a quarterly report documenting events observed and actions taken, recommendations for configuration changes and maintenance, and product updates.[5][11]

ARC is a unified control plane that sits between applications and AI models, giving centralized visibility, governance, and control over all AI traffic. ARC replaces raw provider API keys with rotatable virtual keys and supports connecting to providers via federated SSO pass-through. ARC lets customers set a monthly dollar budget per virtual key, with a choice of hard-block or continue-serving once exhausted. AI Firewall is a security module within ARC that protects AI-powered applications from prompt injection attacks with near-zero latency impact. AI Firewall uses Fastly's SmartParse detection engine and custom guardrails to detect attacks like prompt injection and other LLM specific attacks.[12]

Fastly's cloud CDN accelerates the delivery of dynamic content and caches website content that is unpredictable and event-driven. Fastly's Compute platform helps customers compile custom code to WebAssembly and runs it at the Fastly edge. Deploying to a Compute service makes customer logic available across the Fastly network with a single deploy action. Fastly Object Storage is an Amazon S3-compatible large object storage solution. Fastly's Platform TLS product allows customers to programmatically manage certificates and keys for Transport Layer Security (TLS) using a web API. Origin Inspector provides a dataset and visualizations that offer real-time and historical visibility into responses delivered from origin servers to the Fastly Edge Cloud. Fastly says customers can configure the Fastly CDN service to cache and transmit protected health information (PHI) in keeping with Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) security requirements. Fastly describes Managed CDN as Fastly's managed cloud CDN deployed inside the customer's own network, and Professional Services as expert help to migrate or optimize a delivery service. Fastly describes itself as an ICANN-accredited domain registrar.[2][5][6][10][11][13][14][15][16][17]

Fastly on the record

Sources

Fastly full record

  1. [1]Fastly Announces Acquisition of GlitchFastly via Business Wire · businesswire.com · published May 19, 2022 · Tier A
  2. [2]Web application api protectionFastly · fastly.com · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]SecureFastly · fastly.com · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]Fsly 20241231Fastly, Inc. via SEC EDGAR (Form 10-K) · sec.gov · published February 25, 2025 · Tier A
  5. [5]Powering the best of the internet | FastlyFastly · undated page, accessed October 25, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]Fastly Edge Cloud Platform | FastlyFastly · undated page, accessed October 25, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]Fastly Launches AI Firewall and AI Runtime Control to Secure and Scale AIFastly, Inc. (Business Wire) · published September 21, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Fastly Content Delivery Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2G2 · undated page, accessed October 25, 2026 · Tier C
  9. [9]Fastly Next-Gen WAF | Fastly ProductsFastly · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]Security | Fastly DocumentationFastly · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]Managed Security Professional | Fastly ProductsFastly · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]Fastly ARC | AI Runtime Control | FastlyFastly · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  13. [13]Compute | Fastly ProductsFastly · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  14. [14]Products | Fastly DocumentationFastly · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  15. [15]Platform TLS | Fastly ProductsFastly · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  16. [16]Origin Inspector | Fastly ProductsFastly · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  17. [17]Domain Research API | FastlyFastly · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  18. [18]Comcast and Fastly’s New Content Delivery Model Powers Highest Quality Experience for Peacock’s Biggest Live EventsFastly · published September 28, 2026 · Tier A
  19. [19]Fastly and Skyfire Partner to Enable Trusted Agentic Commerce with Verified Identity at the EdgeFastly · published June 10, 2026 · Tier A

Imperva full record

  1. [1]Thales completes acquisition imperva creating global leaderThales Group · thalesgroup.com · published December 4, 2023 · Tier A
  2. [2]AboutImperva · imperva.com · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]Greg clark joins imperva board of directorsImperva · imperva.com · published June 4, 2014 · Tier A
  4. [4]Application securityImperva · imperva.com · published August 23, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]Cyber Security Leader | Imperva, Inc.Imperva · undated page, accessed October 25, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]Thales Launches Imperva for AWS to Help Organizations Protect Applications and APIsBusiness Wire · published August 3, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]Imperva Data Security Fabric Reviews & Product Details - G2G2 · undated page, accessed October 25, 2026 · Tier C
  8. [8]Thales Group (Imperva) Reviews - Gartner Peer InsightsGartner Peer Insights · undated page, accessed October 25, 2026 · Tier C
  9. [9]Best Application Security | Imperva WAAP ProtectionImperva · undated page, accessed November 6, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]Web Application Firewall (WAF) | Cloud & On-Prem | ImpervaImperva · undated page, accessed November 6, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]Advanced Bot Protection | Stop Advanced Bots | ImpervaImperva · undated page, accessed November 6, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]Advanced DDoS Protection & Mitigation Services | ImpervaImperva · undated page, accessed November 6, 2026 · Tier A
  13. [13]Client-Side Protection | PCI 4.0 Compliance | ImpervaImperva · undated page, accessed November 6, 2026 · Tier A
  14. [14]Enterprise AI & LLM Security | Stop Prompt Injection | ImpervaImperva · undated page, accessed November 6, 2026 · Tier A
  15. [15]Data Security Solutions | Protecting Data Everywhere | ImpervaImperva · undated page, accessed November 6, 2026 · Tier A
  16. [16]Plans and Services | Imperva Cyber SecurityImperva · undated page, accessed November 6, 2026 · Tier A
  17. [17]Retail & eCommerce Cyber Security | Secure Online Transactions | ImpervaImperva · undated page, accessed November 6, 2026 · Tier A
  18. [18]Data Security Fabric | Protect All Data Types | ImpervaImperva · undated page, accessed November 6, 2026 · Tier A
  19. [19]Bring Your Own CA: Introducing the Thales Imperva SSL Integration Center, Featuring DigiCert Trust Lifecycle ManagerImperva · published August 24, 2026 · Tier A

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