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Akamai vs Amazon CloudFront comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Ranking in CDN
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
WAN Optimization (4th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (2nd), Managed DNS (1st), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (5th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (17th)
Akamai
Ranking in CDN
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Amazon CloudFront
Ranking in CDN
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 15.8%, down from 21.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai is 12.0%, down from 16.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon CloudFront is 5.4%, down from 7.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CDN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cloudflare15.8%
Amazon CloudFront5.4%
Akamai12.0%
Other66.8%
CDN
 

Featured Reviews

M.A. Faisal - PeerSpot reviewer
General Manager at bKash Limited
Advanced protection has secured critical web workloads and provides clear traffic visibility
From a security perspective, there remains a security loophole, as some browsers in the market can bypass the Turnstile solution, which requires approximately 40 seconds to do so. From a performance perspective, this is acceptable. We also tried Google reCAPTCHA, and that can also be bypassed. From a security perspective, I would say neither solution is completely secured. Regarding uptime, we have faced a couple of incidents due to Cloudflare in recent years, so I cannot say we receive 100% uptime for our region. We sometimes face challenges, including downtime and other issues. As a result, we are not receiving 100% uptime from Cloudflare's solution. Since most of our customers are in this region, we need alternatives. We need something more competitive than Cloudflare. Unfortunately, in Bangladesh, Cloudflare has three points of presence already, and we cannot find any other solution provider in Bangladesh as an alternative, which presents another challenge. Competitor solutions have more attack signatures, which ensure better security compared to Cloudflare's predefined configurations. Customers do not have options to modify any configuration parameters in Cloudflare, whereas other competitor solutions, such as F5 Distributed Cloud, allow customers to tune configurations according to their requirements. Cloudflare could improve in this area. Additionally, regarding visibility, Cloudflare has static visibility, but they could adopt dynamic graph features for their customers.
JV
Sr. Strategic Accounts Manager at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Improved security and faster operations with a seamless integration
They are one of the top solution vendors in the market. Premium though, but they're the best. We've worked closely with digital-native customers, not so much from the media segment. Fintechs, financial organizations, banking segment, manufacturing, these are the ones we have worked with. Not much on media because most of the media houses are already covered by Akamai. 95% of media houses are already covered by Akamai. It gives a seamless view of how your infrastructure is, from an attack perspective, from a threat perspective, how your assets are behaving. It gives a very comprehensive view. It depends on the customer's environment. Wherever the customer wants, but mostly it is on the private cloud or public cloud because it's a cloud-based SaaS solution that Akamai has to offer. Implementation is feasible anywhere. The solution is aimed at Enterprise customers because it is on a premium side. On a scale of 1-10, this solution rates at 9.5.
Nicolas Forgues - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Data & Content at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
Improved web performance has boosted content customization and currently delivers faster user experiences
From my perspective, I see some weaknesses in Amazon CloudFront; I would rate the product something around nine out of ten, but there are disadvantages compared to its competitors. Talking specifically about Amazon CloudFront, I think they could have some additional features in the future, and I believe they may lack certain functionalities.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I have not had a DDOS attack since, or at least not become unavailable due to DDOS which means my ROI is pretty good."
"Smaller businesses have seen great ROI due to the low investment and strong performance."
"Cloudflare is very straightforward."
"Its ease of integration with Office 365 and the fact that it's a good product compared to what I had before"
"If you don't want to spend too much time hosting your own DNS server or managing the domain, Cloudflare is a great way to rapidly get websites and services online."
"Cloudflare consolidates various capabilities into one product, streamlining processes."
"CloudFlare's caching brings the load speed down from 4.32 seconds to 2.45 seconds."
"Cloudflare is a security SaaS provider that provides security and protects us from any application layer attack."
"As of now, the best thing about Akamai is WAF, and though CDN is a good feature, it comes in second place when compared to WAF. I am very impressed with the WAF offered by Akamai."
"This solution can be used for web , video and media caching and streaming."
"The support from Akamai is fantastic, as they have one of the best supports available and you have assigned engineers targeting specific issues, making the use of the support services very easy."
"It gives a seamless view of how your infrastructure is, from an attack perspective, from a threat perspective, how your assets are behaving; it gives a very comprehensive view."
"The most valuable feature in managing web traffic has been the ability to handle vertical scaling effectively."
"All the policies of the CDNs are very beneficial."
"Akamai's scalability is good."
"We can see how much traffic can be downloaded on the portal."
"The speed and usability of the solution are valuable."
"Amazon CloudFront provides valuable security by ensuring secure file access when accessing files from S3."
"The beneficial feature for the entire AWS community is the presence of edge location servers. These servers are strategically located in multiple locations, allowing efficient content delivery from the nearest server."
"The tool is highly available and reliable. It helps to access server applications easily. Integrating Amazon CloudFront with other AWS services was very easy, I would rate it eight out of ten."
"The best feature of Amazon CloudFront is its simplified process and easy integration."
"The UI and the functionality in AWS for CloudFront is much better as compared to Azure and GCP."
"We can personalize a lot of things inside CDN."
"It is stable."
 

Cons

"They lack a good way to manage DNS as a company, since everything is relegated to single account logins until you get to the higher levels. They have come out with a paid feature to remedy this, but I have not had a chance to fully review it yet to know if it fixes the access problem."
"Eventually, things go sideways and require fixes when it would have been easier to prevent the issue initially."
"The analytics, basically the dashboard, doesn't have much to it."
"The solution could work at being less expensive. It costs a lot to use it."
"The reporting can definitely be improved to offer a lot more explanation on something that may have happened or has actually happened."
"We experienced some downtime in the fall of 2013, causing us to switch to Incapsula."
"There might be helpful if there was some web application firewall feature."
"At the end, it is worth than giving your house keys to the NSA."
"While it's great for solutions with high scalability, like global e-commerce, it's not really built for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). It has too many options and can be complex for SMBs to utilize."
"Caching strategy is an area with certain shortcomings in the solution where improvements are required."
"The solution can be improved by creating a communication pathway with technical engineers because when we open tickets, we have a delay in response times."
"Costing-wise and integration with other tools need improvement, especially API security."
"The fact that it is an expensive product is its only shortcoming."
"When we open tickets, we have a delay in response times."
"Local connectivity would be great linked to our own telecom/Cablevision CDN, as we are a key player for Internet access in Argentina for final users of mobile, DSL, cable, and FTTH users."
"Their support is very slow. If you file a support ticket, it takes a long time before it gets resolved."
"The only issues we've faced were when AWS itself had problems, and that's very rare. I can only recall one instance when they had issues, but they managed to resolve it quickly."
"The product should be more intuitive."
"There is a bit of a workaround required for custom domain management on CloudFront."
"From my perspective, I see some weaknesses in Amazon CloudFront; I would rate the product something around nine out of ten, but there are disadvantages compared to its competitors."
"The user interface could be improved."
"Amazon CloudFront seems to have too many unnecessary products, which makes it cluttered."
"I would like to see an increase in distribution regions in Africa. There are currently only a few regions available."
"The solution could be more simplified for new users. It could be more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."
"In terms of licensing costs, we don't pay for licensing for Cloudflare. We only establish communication, then for peering, Cloudflare takes care of the cross-connection in different data centers."
"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."
"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
"We are using the free version."
"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"Price-wise, I find Akamai's pricing model's inclination to be more towards the expensive side of the spectrum, though I can't say that it is a very expensive product."
"This is a very expensive solution but it works well."
"The solution's pricing is based on bandwidth."
"The price of Akamai could be less expensive."
"Akamai is an expensive tool. Moreover, we have a pay-as-you-go model for additional features."
"The price of the solution depends upon its usage."
"It is an expensive product. The licensing costs for the solution are based on the usage. If we need premium support, we need to buy it from Akamai."
"The pricing of Akamai is moderate, in my opinion. My company makes yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to Akamai. There are no additional costs besides the licensing costs for the solution."
"The solution’s price is reasonable."
"Amazon's pricing varies depending on the data transfer."
"I used to work with AWS and Azure, and we provided cost comparisons for customers to help them choose the right services. Azure tends to be more user-friendly and easier to understand, while AWS may take more time."
"Compared to competitors like Azure and Google, we find AWS pricing to be advantageous."
"The policies and prices keep on changing frequently with AWS solutions"
"The product has a mid-range pricing."
"I rate the product's pricing an eight out of ten. The licensing follows a pay-as-you-go model."
"The tool is affordable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise26
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise17
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GR...
Which would you choose - Cloudflare DNS or Quad9?
Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare DNS?
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Cloudflare are a bit on the higher side overall.
What needs improvement with Akamai?
Other solutions are probably easier to set up, but you have more capability in Akamai. It would be beneficial if they...
What is your primary use case for Akamai?
We are using many of the solutions from Akamai, with the WAF in front of it and distribution to multiple targets wher...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Akamai?
The pricing is good, with no complaints about costs, which is essential when deciding to have Akamai in your network.
How do I choose between AWS Global Accelerator and Amazon CloudFront?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon’s Web Service Global Accelerator or Amazon CloudFro...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon CloudFront?
I find Amazon's pricing good, rating it eight out of ten and considering it affordable and rightly placed, not expens...
What needs improvement with Amazon CloudFront?
Honestly, Amazon CloudFront does its job really well, but it doesn’t always feel easy to work with. The setup can be ...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.
Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Bank of America, Capital One, Cisco, Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines, Disney, Ebay, Facebook, Google, Home Depot, HP, IBM, Intel, JPMorgan Chase, LinkedIn, McDonald's, Microsoft, Netflix, Nike, Oracle, PayPal, Pinterest, Qualcomm, Rakuten, SAP, Spotify, Tesla, Toyota, Visa, Walmart, WeWork
Unilever, Spotify, Pinterest, MLB Advanced Media, Foursquare, PBS, Airbnb, Netflix, WIX, Comcast, Automobili Lamborghini, Rovio, Discovery Communications
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai vs. Amazon CloudFront and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,456 professionals have used our research since 2012.