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Incapsula Review


Incapsula a security CDN service, is a leading CDN service provider that enhances the security and performance of any blog or website, offering a enterprise grade solutions at an affordable prices - including strong Free plan options. Over years Incapsula was featured in many sites; CNET, Forbes, etc. The company's client list included many Global brands, Sony, ControlScan and KDE - amongst others. However, Incapsula main mission is affordable security for SMB and SME websites, which it achieves via its cost minimizing cloud technology.

What's a CDN?

CDN, short form of Content Delivery Network, is a system with servers that quickly transfers the data of a hosted websites to web browsers and web-data accessing systems. CDN shortens the physical distance your website and its visitors and caches the website's content. This will make the website load faster and bring down bandwidth consumption.
















What Incapsula CDN got to offer?

Incapsula operates on a global network of data center, which it uses to accelerate the performance of customer websites. Incapsula offers CDN and standard caching capabilities for free and these will make the website go 40% faster and consuming 50% less bandwidth.

Incapsula’s paid customers (starting at $9/month) can also get access to Advanced caching, which uses smart algorithms to improve the speed and bandwidth consumption by another 30%-60%.

Security is what Incapsula does best.

The free plan users can benefit from a great visitor classification technology which will block bad bots, spammers, scrapers and automated attackers - allowing only legitimate traffic to come through.

Incapsula paid plans will improve security even further with PCI compliant Web Application Firewall (WAF). This WAF keeps website safe from sophisticated malicious attacks like SQL injection, XSS, etc. This solution proved to be extremely effective, and will block even the most recent threats, because its constantly maintained and updated by Incapsula security team.

Incapsula also offers DDoS protection service that delivers immediate and comprehensive protection for both network and application level (layer 7) DDoS. Incapsula’s methods of mitigation are fully transparent and it will not cause business disruption, even when blocking an incoming attack.

The setup is very easy; with simple DNS changes everyone can add Incapsula in less than 5 minutes compared to other CDNs, this is a breeze.
Watch what Incapsula is in this short video demonstration


What makes Incapsula better than other CDN providers?

i. CDN and website optimizer

Incapsula's Global CDN keeps the websites running at top speed. This CDN provider's unique technology optimizes any hosted site's loading and navigation processes, without compromising the site's appearance and functions. This also increases the website speed by getting both content related visitors and ensuring how fast and efficiently the page renders; regardless to visitors' device or location.
The CDN combines best industry practices such as caching, compression and connection combing with innovative techniques. This is important because good performance ensures happy users and returning business. In the end, "happy users = better conversions."

Key CDN benefits:

  • Wide spread Global CDN
  • Proxy accleration
  • Dynamic content caching
  • makes websites 30% to 70% faster
  • saves up to 90% bandwidth

ii. Enterprise grade WAF

As informed above, Incapsula uses PCI certified and cloud-based Web Application Firewall(WAF) to protect its clients. This WAF offers an enterprise level security, and it's currently- the only cloud based PCI compliant WAF - which tells a lot about its quality. The WAF is a product of eight years of experience in the field of website's security and is highly customizable and effective against all security threats, including OWASP Top 10. Best of all, these security features are enhanced by real time updated and centralized collaboration and thus doesn't require any security expertise from the user.

Due to the effectiveness of its security features, Incapusla's service are used by many trusted websites: financial institutions, government agencies, ecommerce application and trading platform. Recently introduced Backdoor Protection feature is a welcome addition, as it also helps remove backdoor sheels from compromised sites, helping even those who were hacked before adding the service,check more details here.

Key WAF benefits:

  • Enterprise-grade security
  • Comprehensive protection: SQLI, XSS, RFI and more
  • Deals with all OWASP top ten threats
  • PCI compliance and auto-reporting
  • Easy to use and customizable - fit for security experts and every-day users alike

More details? check them here.

iii.DDoS Protection


Incapsula uses load balancing and intelligent scrubbing to mitigate DDoS attacks of all kinds and sizes. The service provides cost-effective protection against network and application layer DDoS.
The focus here is on zero business disruption. Incapsula scrubbing methods offer 99.9% accuracy to prevent any loss of business when under attack. The key is SMART mitigation. No lags, no delay pages, just effective protection. At the same time, Incapsula reverse proxy setup can also be used for IP masking – providing effective protection even to free plan customers.


Key DDoS Benefits:

  • Accurate DDoS Protection
  • Zero Business Disruption
  • Fast and easy deployment
  • Centralized Attack analysis
  • Affordable protection
  • Protects from all DDoS attacks: TCP FIN, UDP, ICMP, HTTP Flood, etc. 

iv. Plans and Pricing

Incapsula provides four different plans, starting from Free to  Enterprise packages. The free plan will not provide DDoS protection, beyond that which is offered by all CNDs, but allof the plans come with a free 14 days trials, so if you need a long-term solution, at least you can try it before you buy it. The paid plans start at $9/month and this will get you all of the advanced acceleration features and SSL support, with free protection from bots and automated threat, this should be enough for many online businesses. For WAF you'll need to pay $59 a month, still a very low price - considering the benefits of such service and the existing, much more costly, alternatives.














Get the complete comparison list at the official site of Incapsula from here.

v. Control Panel and Analytics

Apart from the above mentioned advantages, Incapsula also provides excellent real-time analytics for web traffic from search engines, bots, etc for performance and threats.

Incapsula control panel is very user-friendly and easy to use. It does a good job separating between high and low end features.This is good news if you don’t want to spend a lot of time on customization. Still, if you have some security background and  want extra control over the default configuration – you can do that too.

vi. 24/7 Support

Incapsula provides a 24/7 contact support for its customers, either by email, by chat or by phone. This makes things a lot easier for new and existing customers. Incapsula also operated an online Support Center and a frequently updated company Blog. You can also contact them on Twitter or excellent Facebook page.

Conclusions

Reviewing Incapsula was a pleasure andI would definitely recommend this CDN over others. It does an excellent job at acceleration but really shines when it comes to security.In the end, Incapsula simply does more than other CDN providers. My final score is 4.5 out of 5. There is a room for improvement in the control panel, but these are just minor issues. In the end, it does what it says it does, in a very effective way and for a very low price.Try the CDN service from Incapsula now!

Incapsula CDN Reviewed by Murali Mohan on . Rating: 4.5
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