Company Overview
Incapsula was originally a data security company that operated under the name Imperva. In 2009, they spun out of Imperva and Incapsula was formed. Incapsula offers an array of online security services along with their content delivery network. Currently, their four major product categories include:
- DDoS Protection (Nameserver protection, Infrastructure protection, etc)
- Website Security (WAF, Bot mitigation, etc)
- CDN
- Load Balancer (Site failover, Health monitoring, etc)
The way Incapsula structures their service offerings and pricing is a little different than that of most CDN providers. This Incapsula review will provide you with more information in regards to what they offer specifically from a content delivery network point of view.
Network
At the time of writing this Incapsula review, the company’s network of PoPs currently consisted of 27 locations across the Americas, Europe & Middle East, as well as Asia and Pacific. The following section show a map of where each PoP is located globally as well as a full list of their exact locations.
| Americas | Europe & Middle East | Asia and Pacific |
|---|---|---|
| Atlanta | Amsterdam | Auckland |
| Dallas | London | Sydney |
| Ashburn | Milan | Melbourne |
| Los Angeles | Paris | Hong Kong |
| Miami | Frankfurt | Singapore |
| New-York | Stockholm | Tokyo |
| Chicago | Tel Aviv | |
| Seattle | Zurich | |
| San Jose | Warsaw | |
| Toronto | ||
| São Paulo |
Features
Incapsula’s CDN comes with various features you can use to further accelerate your content delivery, provide increased security, etc. However, as mentioned earlier, the way they structure their features / pricing is somewhat different than traditional CDN providers and resembles more the Cloudflare pricing model. The features which are available to customers are very much dependant upon the type of plan you have. That being said, the following is a list of popular CDN features and which ones Incapsula currently provides as well as a few that they don’t.
| Feature | Supported? |
|---|---|
| Origin Pull | Yes |
| API | Yes |
| ALPN | Yes |
| Instant Purge | Yes |
| Gzip | Yes |
| HTTP/2 | Yes |
| Shared SSL | Yes |
| Origin Shield | Yes |
| Real-time Statistics | Yes (Enterprise plan only) |
| Custom SSL | Yes (Extra cost) |
| DDoS Protection | Yes (Enterprise and Business plans only) |
| Free Support | Yes (Varies upon plan type) |
| Additional Zones | Yes (Extra cost depending upon plan type) |
| Custom Rules | Yes (Enterprise plan only) |
| Origin Push | No |
| Raw Logs | No |
| Secure Token | No |
| Let’s Encrypt SSL | No |
Incapsula Pricing
When it comes to pricing, Incapsula currently offers 4 different plan types, these include:
- Free
- Pro ($59/site/month)
- Business ($299/site/month)
- Enterprise (Contact them)
Their free plan allows you to use their CDN for up to 10 sites, however is quite limited in terms of functionality depending upon your needs. Additionally, as soon as you need a feature that isn’t provided in the free plan you are required to upgrade to one of their paid plans. The pricing for these plans are on based on a monthly recurring cost and are charged per site. Therefore if you use the Pro plan on 3 sites you will pay $59 x 3 = $177/month.
If security is a major concern and you want to take advantage of Incapsula’s DDoS protection services, you will need to upgrade to their Business plan. DDoS protection is the only difference between their Pro and Business plan and costs $299/site/month compared to $59/site/month. However, if you require the use of the other services they provide such as load balancing, customized setup, multiple account users, etc you will need to upgrade to their Enterprise plan.
For a complete feature comparison between the four plans that Incapsula offers, visit their pricing page.
Incapsula Review – In Conclusion
In summary, Incapsula’s CDN provides a few important features such as HTTP/2, origin shield, instant purge, and even IPv6. If you run a small website and don’t require many security features, dedicated support, or real-time analytics offered in their paid plans, then giving their free CDN a try is certainly an option.
However, proper due diligence should always be done to see what your website truly requires in terms of features before choosing to go with any CDN provider. In the event that you require DDoS protection, Incapsula’s CDN can also start to get quite expensive especially if you have more than one website.
Hopefully, this Incapsula review has given you more insight into what this CDN provider offers in terms of features and pricing. With this information, you can compare it amongst other CDN providers we’ve reviewed and then make a decision regarding which one best suits your needs.
