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Akamai Page Integrity Manager vs cside

This article takes an honest look at the features of Akamai Page Integrity Manager. Since you're on the cside website, we acknowledge our bias. That said, we've built our case honestly and based our analysis on publicly available information, industry information, and our own or our customers' experiences.

Apr 28, 2024 Updated Dec 15, 2025
cside Team
cside Team

This article takes an honest look at the features of Akamai Page Integrity Manager.

Since you're on the cside website, we acknowledge our bias. That said, we've built our case honestly and based our analysis on publicly available information, industry information, and our own or our customers' experiences.

If you want to verify their claims yourself, please navigate to their product pages.

CriteriacsideAkamai Page Integrity ManagerWhy It MattersWhat the Consequences Are
Approaches usedProxyJS-Based Detection
Real-time Protection
Attacks can occur between scans or in the excluded data when sampledDelayed detection = active data breaches
Full Payload Analysis
Ensures deep visibility into malicious behaviors within script code itselfThreats go unnoticed unless the source is known on a threat feed
Dynamic Threat Detection
Identifies attacks that change based on user, time, or locationMissed detection of targeted attacks
DOM-Level Threat Detection
Tracks changes to the DOM and observes how scripts behave during runtimeUnable to identify sophisticated DOM-based attacks
100% Historical Tracking & Forensics
Needed for incident response, auditing, and complianceNeeded for incident response, auditing, and compliance
Bypass Protection
Stops attackers from circumventing controls via DOM obfuscation or evasionStealthy threats continue undetected
Certainty the Script Seen by User is Monitored
Aligns analysis with what actually executes in the browserGaps between what's reviewed and what's actually executed
AI-driven Script Analysis
Detects novel or evolving threats through behavior modelingReliance on manual updates, threat feeds or rules = slow and error-prone detection
QSA validated PCI dash
The most reliable way to ensure a solution is PCI compliant is to conduct a thorough audit by an independent QSAWithout QSA validation, you rely entirely on marketing claims, which could result in failing an audit
SOC 2 Type II
Shows consistent operational security controls over timeLacks verified security control validation, making it a risky vendor
PCI specific UI
An easy interface for quick script review and justification via one click or AI automationMundane tasks and manual research on what all the scripts do, which takes hours or days

What is Akamai Page Integrity Manager?

Akamai Page Integrity Manager solely competes with cside's Client-side security solution and PCI Shield. Other services like VPN detection, AI agent detection and Privacy Watch are not in their scope.

Akamai Page Integrity Manager is a client-side security solution that monitors and analyzes JavaScript running in users' browsers to detect malicious activity, like digital skimming, formjacking, and Magecart-style attacks. It focuses on identifying suspicious behavior from third-party scripts and alerting when potentially harmful actions are found.

Is it a good idea to buy a client-side security solution from a firewall vendor?

Large security vendors sometimes have a stab at shipping a quick side product. They do this as they know that their buyers are bought into their platform. The easy choice is to simply buy their solution. However, many users notice quickly that these products did not get the attention they needed and often simply do not work or address the requirements. Browsers as an attack surface are totally different from looking at a network packet as firewall.

How Akamai Page Integrity Manager works

Akamai's Page Integrity Manager is mainly able to list, allow, and block scripts based on previous intel and known issues. They offer great visibility of the script sources, but no insight into the actual payload of a script. This means they can't block scripts in real-time, before needing confirmation after alerting you.

Akamai Page Integrity Manager injects a JavaScript file into the of a website, which runs in the user's browser during live sessions. The script monitors the execution of all other scripts on the page.

Users need to set up a policy management system that allows them to allowlist or block specific scripts or domains. This is combined with a threat feed to check which sources are deemed safe and malicious.

This is a reactive solution. Akamai Page Integrity Manager can not actively block malicious scripts before they execute. Blocking relies on predefined allow/block policies or manual response after detection, meaning new attacks need to be found, understood and adjusted for in order to be properly detected and blocked next time.

How cside goes further

Cside primarily offers a hybrid proxy approach which sits in between the user session and the 3rd party service. It analyzes the served dependencies code in real-time before serving it to the user.

This allows us to not only spot advanced highly targeted attacks and alert on them, cside also makes it possible to block attacks before they touch the user's browser. It also checks the box for multiple compliance frameworks, including PCI DSS 4.0.1. We even provide deep forensics, including if an attacker bypasses our detections. This allows you to more tightly scope the size of the incident and helps us make our detection capabilities better every day. No other vendor has this capability.

We believe this is the most secure way to monitor and protect your dependencies across your entire website. We've spent years in the client-side security space before we started cside, we've seen it all, this is the only way you can actually spot an attack.

Sign up or book a demo to get started.

cside Team
Author cside Team

Developer Experience

Public Developer Documentation

cside is the only client-side security solution with publicly accessible developer documentation. You can explore our complete technical docs, API references, and integration guides without requiring a sales call or demo.

cside

cside provides comprehensive public documentation at docs.cside.com

Explore cside Docs
Akamai Page Integrity Manager

Akamai Page Integrity Manager does not offer publicly accessible developer documentation. You'll need to contact their sales team or request a demo just to understand how their product works.

Why does this matter?

Public documentation means you can evaluate cside's technical capabilities, integration requirements, and API features before making any commitment. Transparency in documentation reflects transparency in the product.

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

The fundamental difference is where protection happens. Akamai injects JavaScript monitoring code into your pages and watches for suspicious behavior after scripts have already reached your users' browsers. Cside's hybrid proxy intercepts and analyzes every script before it reaches the browser, blocking malicious content at the network level. This means we prevent attacks from happening, while Akamai detects them after they've already executed and potentially collected user data.

No, because cside's core analysis happens on our proxy, completely invisible to attackers. Akamai's JavaScript monitoring code runs in the user's browser where sophisticated attackers can see it, analyze it, and potentially disable or bypass it. Since our proxy protection occurs server-side before content reaches the browser, attackers have no way to detect, study, or circumvent our security mechanisms.

Akamai provides behavioral alerts and monitoring data when suspicious activity is detected, but cside captures and archives the exact malicious code bytes that were attempted to load. This gives you complete, replay-ready forensic evidence showing precisely what the attack looked like, how it worked, and what data it was trying to steal. Auditors and incident response teams get immutable proof of the attack rather than just behavioral observations.

Cside provides superior compliance documentation because we maintain immutable records of every script version, complete with cryptographic hashes and archived code. This creates a comprehensive audit trail showing exactly what was blocked and when. Akamai's monitoring approach provides behavioral logs and alerts, but lacks the detailed forensic evidence that regulators and auditors increasingly require for thorough incident documentation and compliance reporting.

Prevention stops attacks before any damage occurs, while detection only alerts you after malicious scripts have already executed in your users' browsers. With Akamai's approach, credit card numbers and personal data can be stolen in milliseconds before the monitoring system even detects the attack. Cside's proxy ensures malicious scripts never get the chance to interact with user data because they're blocked before reaching the browser entirely.

Akamai injects monitoring JavaScript into every page, adding overhead to each page load and consuming browser resources to constantly monitor script behavior. Cside's proxy approach often improves performance by caching scripts and blocking resource-heavy malicious scripts before they can execute.

Cside's AI-powered proxy analysis is far superior for sophisticated attacks. Our self-hosted LLM can analyze obfuscated code and conditional logic that bypass simple behavioral monitoring. Akamai's browser-based detection relies on recognizing suspicious behaviors, but advanced attackers design their code to appear normal while operating maliciously. Our proxy catches these attacks through deep code analysis before they ever reach the browser.

Akamai monitors what scripts do after they're already running in the browser, looking for suspicious behaviors like unauthorized data collection or DOM manipulation. Cside analyzes what scripts are before they execute, using analysis rules and AI to examine the actual code structure, logic, and intent. This lets us identify malicious scripts even if they're designed to behave normally until specific conditions are met.

When Akamai detects suspicious behavior, it sends alerts and may block certain actions, but the malicious script has already been delivered to the user's browser. When cside detects a malicious script, we block it entirely before it reaches the browser, and if needed, we can serve the last known safe version using our hash-locking technology. This ensures your website continues functioning while staying completely protected.

Cside is virtually impossible to reverse engineer because attackers never see our analysis logic. It all happens on our proxy infrastructure. Akamai's JavaScript monitoring code is delivered to every browser where attackers can study it, understand how it works, and craft attacks specifically designed to avoid triggering alerts. This is why sophisticated attackers have learned to bypass browser-based monitoring systems.