DataDome API Protection vs OWASP Coraza WAF
DataDome API Protection
datadome.co
OWASP Coraza WAF
coraza.ioSide by side
| Figure | DataDome API Protection | OWASP Coraza WAF |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $3,830/mo | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 1 |
| Spec score · Web Security Software | 8.1 (#3) | 7.6 (#9) |
| Spec score · Web Application Firewall Software | 8.0 (#9) | 7.5 (#16) |
| Founded | 2015 | 2021 |
| Integrations | The product page names AWS API Gateway, Kong, Apigee, and Nginx, and says it integrates with CDNs and cloud infrastructure through lightweight connectors. | Official connectors are listed for NGINX, Envoy, Caddy, Apache APISIX, proxy-wasm, HAProxy, Traefik, and libcoraza. |
| Purpose | DataDome API Protection monitors API traffic in real time to detect and block automated threats, fraud, and unauthorized access. | Coraza is an open-source Web Application Firewall for APIs and web applications. |
| Threat coverage | The product page lists account takeover, carding, credential stuffing, Layer 7 DDoS, and scraping among the attacks it blocks across websites, mobile apps, APIs, and MCP servers. | The documentation says OWASP CRS protects against attacks including SQL injection, cross-site scripting, code injection, HTTPoxy, Shellshock, and scanner or bot activity. |
Plans
DataDome API Protection
- Essentials$3,830 a month
- Advanced$8,670 a month
- Premium$10,160 a month
- Enterprise$13,270 a month
In their own words
DataDome API Protection
DataDome API Protection has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.
OWASP Coraza WAF
OWASP Coraza WAF is a free, open-source Web Application Firewall for APIs and web applications. It supports ModSecurity SecLang rulesets and is fully compatible with the OWASP Core Rule Set. That ruleset covers threats including SQL injection, cross-site scripting, code injection, HTTPoxy, Shellshock and scanner or bot activity. Coraza can run as a sidecar, proxy or library in Go, C++ and WebAssembly. Official connectors are listed for NGINX, Envoy, Caddy, Apache APISIX, proxy-wasm, HAProxy, Traefik and libcoraza. Documentation describes extension points for audit loggers, persistence engines, operators, actions and plugins, with examples for GeoIP and a package containing the Core Rule Set and recommended configuration. The Quick Start requires Go 1.24 or later. Platforms listed are API, Linux, macOS and self-hosted. Coraza offers managed rule sets, API protection and bot management. The v3 internals documentation says persistent collections such as IP, SESSION and RESOURCE are not currently supported. Coraza Playground provides a sandbox web interface for testing rules. The Open source plan is listed at free.