Bots are pervasive. Fraudsters use them to automate attacks, hijack accounts, and scrape sensitive data. Whether you’re facing simple scripts or highly sophisticated bots mimicking human behavior, choosing the right protection is crucial. Just last year, DataDome stopped over 350 billion fraud attacks—showing the scale of the problem.

When it comes to bot protection, businesses typically choose between two main solutions: specialized point product tools or Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) that bundle bot protection as part of their offering.

However, there is a third option—one that strikes a balance by offering both specialized bot protection and coverage for adjacent fraud use cases, all in a unified platform. This article examines the pros and cons of the first two options and why a unified cyberfraud platform offers the best protection.

The Pros & Cons of Big CDNs For Bot Protection

Almost all CDNs offer some level of bot protection. However, these providers lack the specialization and expertise needed in bot protection—and therefore fall short of protecting against advanced bot attacks and fraud.

Pros:

• Bundled Security Options: One of the key advantages of CDNs is their ability to bundle various security tools such as web application firewalls (WAFs), DDoS protection, and bot management into a single platform. This bundling reduces complexity for companies by offering a one-stop shop for multiple security needs.

Cons:

• Basic Bot Protection Only: Most CDNs are designed to handle basic bot protection, such as blocking common automated scripts and low-level bots. However, when it comes to advanced bots that use sophisticated techniques to bypass defenses—like residential proxy networks, browser fingerprinting evasion, and human behavior emulation—these solutions often lack the depth and specialization required.
• No Mobile App Protection: While CDNs typically protect websites, they may not extend this protection to mobile apps and APIs, leaving those areas exposed.
• Lack of Specialization: CDNs focus on a broad range of functionalities beyond security, such as accelerating content delivery and reducing latency. As a result, they may not invest heavily in the latest bot detection technologies, or in having the specialized Threat Research teams that are necessary if you want to stay ahead of advanced bot developers.
• Slow Adaptation to Evolving Threats: Due to their scale and generalist nature, large platform solutions may be slower to adapt to the rapidly evolving tactics used by sophisticated bots. This also means they can be limited in their use of AL and ML for detection, and therefore less effective. This lag can leave businesses exposed to emerging threats that more agile, specialized solutions would detect and mitigate quickly.

The Pros & Cons of Small Point Product Bot Mitigation

On the other end of the spectrum are small point product vendors that do not offer a platform approach to bot management. While these vendors offer more specialized protection against bots, they also come with their own set of challenges.

Pros:

• Better Detection Than CDNs: Point product vendors often provide highly effective bot management, with better detection capabilities for sophisticated bot behavior compared to large, generalist CDNs. Their focus on this niche allows them to use more advanced technologies and strategies to identify and block bots.

Cons:

• Tool Sprawl: Relying on multiple specialized bot tools can lead to tool sprawl, where organizations end up managing several point solutions, each designed to address a specific aspect of bot management. This approach can increase complexity, reduce operational efficiency, and make it difficult for security, fraud, and marketing teams to maintain a coherent defense strategy. For example, not all bot protection vendors offer additional solutions for protecting against click fraud and account fraud.
• Limited Fraud Use Cases: Most point product solutions are designed to focus narrowly on specific bot-related threats, which means they often fail to address a wide variety of fraud use cases. For instance, while these solutions may be effective in mitigating bot attacks, they frequently lack the functionality to combat broader fraud schemes like account takeovers, click fraud, or payment fraud. This gap leaves organizations vulnerable to various forms of automated fraud, forcing them to adopt additional tools for fraud prevention, which compounds the issues of tool sprawl and fragmented data.
• Data & ML Silos: Small point product solutions often operate in isolation, resulting in data silos that limit visibility across the threat landscape. Without a unified view of attacks across different vectors and endpoints, organizations may miss critical correlations and fail to detect sophisticated threats.

Why a Cyberfraud Protection Platform Is the Best Option

If you’re deciding between a point-product bot vendor and a CDN with bot detection, you should know a third option exists—one that not only provides robust bot mitigation but also extends its capabilities to adjacent fraud use cases, all within a single, comprehensive platform.

To combat modern cyber threats effectively, businesses need an integrated solution that addresses bot and fraud activity. Bots often serve as the entry point for fraudulent actions, and as they become more sophisticated, distinguishing between automated threats and legitimate users becomes increasingly difficult. An ideal platform should detect whether a request comes from a bot and analyze subsequent behavior to identify fraud attempts, whether from advanced bots or human actors.

This approach delivers several key advantages:

• Advanced Bot & Fraud Protection in One Platform: A unified platform that specializes in bot protection, like DataDome’s Cyberfraud Protection Platform, provides advanced detection of bots and also extends these capabilities to address fraud. Unlike legacy fraud products that often focus on narrow aspects like IP reputation or take a reactive approach by addressing fraud after it occurs, DataDome’s multi-layered machine learning models proactively block threats before they escalate by leveraging a sophisticated detection engine that analyzes complex behaviors and tactics in real-time.
• Integrated Fraud & Cybersecurity Protection: Unlike siloed point product solutions, a unified platform allows for seamless integration and protection across various use cases and attack surfaces—including mobile apps, API protection, ad fraud prevention, and account fraud prevention. This also enables the sharing of threat intelligence and data between fraud and cybersecurity teams, further strengthening detection and response capabilities.
• Collective Intelligence: Data from multiple solutions and use cases can dramatically improve detection accuracy. By analyzing a broader range of signals and data across multiple fraud use cases, AI and machine learning models gain more context, making it easier to detect patterns and anomalies. The more data these models have, the more accurate and effective they become, leading to enhanced protection against even the most sophisticated bot and fraud attacks.
• Reduced Complexity & Increased ROI: By consolidating multiple bot security functions into a single platform, organizations can reduce the number of tools they need to manage, streamline operations, and reduce costs. This consolidation also ensures a more coherent and coordinated defense strategy between fraud and cybersecurity teams, improving the overall security posture.
• Adaptability & Real-Time Threat Response: A specialized platform that focuses on advanced threats can adapt more quickly to new attack techniques and update its defenses in real time. This proactive approach ensures that organizations are protected against the latest threats, reducing the risk of breaches and other security incidents.

DataDome: The Right Solution for Comprehensive Coverage & Usability

According to Gartner, “Bot mitigation is arguably the foundation of any fraud detection strategy designed to protect digital channels” (source: Gartner Market Guide for Online Fraud Detection, By Analyst(s): Akif Khan, Dan Ayoub).

With this in mind, your bot protection should naturally extend to your fraud prevention strategy. While big CDN platforms offer a wide range of security tools, they often lack the expertise and specialization needed to combat advanced bots and fraud. On the other hand, small bot point products provide specialized protection but can lead to tool sprawl and fragmented defenses. The ideal solution lies in a unified platform, like DataDome, that combines specialized bot protection with the integration and flexibility of a comprehensive Cyberfraud Protection Platform.

By adopting a unified, specialized approach to bot protection across multiple teams, businesses can ensure they are prepared for today’s threats and future-proofed against tomorrow’s sophisticated cyberfraud challenges.

Try DataDome for free or book a demo today to see how our Cyberfraud Protection Platform makes protecting your business against sophisticated threats simple.