Akamai vs Amazon CloudFront comparison

Akamai and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are both solutions in the CDN category. Akamai is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.7, while Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.2. Akamai holds a 16.2% mindshare in CDN, compared to Amazon Web Services (AWS)’s 9.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Akamai users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

Akamai and Amazon CloudFront compete in the content delivery network space, with Amazon CloudFront having an edge due to its comprehensive features and pricing value.

Features: Akamai is known for its advanced security features, global scale, and customizable infrastructure. Amazon CloudFront is valued for its seamless AWS integration, scalability, and overall usability.

Room for Improvement: Akamai could enhance its ease of deployment, simplify integration, and reduce setup complexity. Amazon CloudFront might improve by expanding non-AWS integration, refining its setup for varied tech stacks, and offering more customization options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Amazon CloudFront offers straightforward deployment and strong AWS service integration, resulting in easier setup and efficient customer service. Akamai's deployment is more complex but offers extensive customization options, which may require specialized support.

Pricing and ROI: Akamai tends to have higher setup costs due to its robust security and customization features, potentially yielding long-term ROI for tailored solutions. Amazon CloudFront provides competitive pricing and strong ROI, particularly beneficial for AWS users, supported by its pay-as-you-go model.

To learn more, read our detailed Akamai vs. Amazon CloudFront Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Akamai vs. Amazon CloudFront

January 2025

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 22.2%, up from 20.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai is 16.2%, up from 15.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon CloudFront is 9.3%, down from 12.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

CDN

Featured Reviews

Spencer Malmad

Owner at Tech Exchange

It's easy to set up because you point the DNS to it, and it's working in under 15 minutes

Cloudflare is highly scalable. Cloudflare is a system with a web portal that the end users like me see. It's a console where we can adjust the DNS, caching, and security features all in that console. Cloudflare owns thousands of servers across the world that cache the data. It's a powerful solution. When clients sign up for Cloudflare, they're getting this monster content delivery network, security, and a web application firewall in one. It's all rolled into one, and it's massive. Unless you have your website hosted on a massive hosting provider, there's no way that you can deliver the amount of data that Cloudflare can provide to the end users. If you have static content, there's no way that you can ever match what Cloudflare can do. Obviously, there are competitors to Cloudflare that do the same, but I'm saying other types of solutions. Let's say you go with F5. Great, that's on-prem. That's in your colo. You can't deliver as much data to the internet as you can with a CDN. You don't have to spend $20,000 on a net scaler, F5, or whatever Cisco's selling now. You don't have to buy that. You pay them $50 a month or $150 a month. It's totally worth it because even in five years, you'll never get the performance value, not just the actual ROI. You have to consider how much throughput you can get with Cloudflare.

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XYX ABC

Product Manager at Infozion

Offers great enterprise support, ideal for solutions requiring high scalability and seamless integration with AWS infrastructure

For Akamai, it is definitely one of the best tools out there. However, there are challenges with how their approach is designed for large enterprises. 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. That's the biggest challenge we faced when migrating to Akamai from other solutions, like Cloudflare. It can be difficult to migrate between platforms. Due to its great features but high activation thresholds. So, while it's a powerful tool, it has limitations for some implementations. It was difficult to migrate from and to Akamai. It is challenging when we are building a website.

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Elham AlMoosawi

Global Business Client Partnership Management at Bahrain Telecommunication Company BSC (Batelco)

Commendable solution enhancing regional connectivity and efficiency

Its main advantage is that it offers something in this region that wasn't available before; previously, you had to go outside the region to get the same level of service you can now access right here in Bahrain. It's truly incredible. Our customers are more interested in accessing CDNs and peering with each other. Moreover, building this IX has significantly changed how traffic is handled. It has enabled better regional connectivity and access to content, which was our main goal. It has saved us money and time.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering, so it's a valuable tool."

"I rate its stability a ten out of ten."

"Smaller businesses have seen great ROI due to the low investment and strong performance."

"The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security."

"I like Cloudflare's application gateway and DDoS protection."

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is its global reach and it is always evolving."

"The attacker won't have details since my public IP is anonymous. It offers us good privacy."

"From what I've seen so far, there are no negatives to report as of yet"

More Cloudflare pros

"If an attacker conducts an attack, we can check what query he is running and whether he wants to see our password or any other files."

"Akamai has a very established network of PoPs globally."

"Akamai's scalability is good."

"We can see how much traffic can be downloaded on the portal."

"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."

"The solution's technical support is very prompt and good."

"It's a scalable and reliable solution."

"The most valuable feature of Akamai is its ease of use and simple integration. Additionally, the solution has new aspects added to it regularly."

More Akamai pros

"The solution has good security features."

"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 distribution aspect of CloudFront and its ability to reduce latency are most beneficial."

"The AWS environment was very helpful in terms of integration."

"It is stable."

"The support team is knowledgeable."

"Amazon CloudFront is a stable solution."

"The solution makes our platform fully accessible and available globally, helping us to ensure that our customers can rely on it being up and running."

More Amazon CloudFront pros

Cons

"DNS Management."

"The solution could work at being less expensive. It costs a lot to use it."

"Cloudflare does not have an on-premise solution. If they had different approaches they could be better suited to accommodate more customers, such as on-premise and hybrid deployments. For example, hybrid deployments would be useful where you could move the traffic from the enterprise to the cloud."

"It should confirm audit findings of the assigned area with auditees to ensure that the audit conclusions are based on an accurate understanding of the issues."

"The documentation could improve for Cloudflare DNS."

"It would be helpful if the solution could continue evolving to compete with the other solutions on the market."

"Cloudflare could offer a better view or maybe dashboards of the main resources used in the client."

"It should be easier to collect the logs with companies like Sumo. However, based on my discussions with the salespeople, I understand that's how they make their money. With the enterprise product, they want people doing those kinds of enterprise features to do the logging. They want them to pay a lot of money, and that's where I have an issue with them. That should be a default. You should be able to get the log no matter what. The logging should be universal."

More Cloudflare cons

"The solution could offer more integrations."

"Akamai's configuration part is an area of concern where improvements are required to make the process easy."

"When we open tickets, we have a delay in response times."

"Akamai should improve its integrations."

"Akamai could improve by providing its own cloud services. We have to use third-party cloud services at this time, such as Amazon AWS. The offering becomes a lot easier for an SMB if everything was in one single platform to be used for the services."

"The product's scalability can be improved since certain shortcomings regarding the security part of the solution currently exist."

"It would be better if we could be notified about specific attacks."

"The fact that it is an expensive product is its only shortcoming."

More Akamai cons

"There are some solutions needed for integration that are not free."

"The solution can benefit from expanding its data center and server locations to multiple places for smoother content delivery with even lower latency. The latency we experience is sufficient for our needs, and we are doing well. However, if they expand their locations in the future, it could be a positive factor. Its competitors have multiple data and server locations."

"A lot of caching features must be added to the solution."

"I have utilized certain characteristics and invested effort in reading the documentation, which proved to be challenging."

"Amazon CloudFront seems to have too many unnecessary products, which makes it cluttered."

"During the setup phase, there were some hiccups in terms of security, the user role, and the permissions."

"Sometimes, the server goes down automatically."

"I would like to see an increase in distribution regions in Africa. There are currently only a few regions available."

More Amazon CloudFront cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We don't have any issues with the price."

"I think the pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."

"The price of the solution is expensive."

"We are using the free version."

"The product's pricing is cheap."

"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."

"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."

"We are using the free tier of the solution."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"The price of Akamai could be less expensive."

"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."

"The solution can be one of the more expensive options, reflecting their established market position."

"From the resource component, it's very costly, and Akamai's charges are also high. So, any organization with a high-tech budget can definitely afford it, but companies with 10-15% of their revenue as a technical budget probably won't be able to. That's where they have a lot of room for improvement if they want to onboard those early users."

"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."

"Quite high in price, but equivalent to other enterprise products on the market"

"Akamai is an expensive tool. Moreover, we have a pay-as-you-go model for additional features."

"This is a very expensive solution but it works well."

More Akamai pricing and cost advice

"Its price is really on the high side. It should be cheaper in general."

"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."

"Amazon CloudFront costs less than third-party services."

"The tool is affordable."

"I rate the product's pricing an eight out of ten. The licensing follows a pay-as-you-go model."

"Compared to competitors like Azure and Google, we find AWS pricing to be advantageous."

"The solution’s price is reasonable."

"The product has a mid-range pricing."

More Amazon CloudFront pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user69348

Partner at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Nov 17, 2013

Akamai vs. CloudFlare – Simple Stats

In the world of CDNs Akamai is the incumbent 500 pound gorilla, no question. They have a HUGE global presence, super solid technology and networks, and have the most experience with large enterprise clients. However, now there other strong players in the CDN market. One of the most…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

25%

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

28%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

25%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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...

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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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Cloudflare?

Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.

See all answers

What do you like most about Akamai?

The most valuable feature in managing web traffic has been the ability to handle vertical scaling effectively.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Akamai?

Costing-wise and integration with other tools need improvement, especially API security.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Akamai?

We monitor all the traffic which is coming from the Internet to our environment through the Akamai CDN.

See all answers

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...

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What do you like most about Amazon CloudFront?

The solution has good security features.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon CloudFront?

CloudFront is relatively cheap and worth the money.

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 49% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Amazon Route 53 vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Google Cloud DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

Azure Front Door vs Akamai

Compared 23% of the time

Imperva DDoS vs Akamai

Compared 15% of the time

Fastly vs Akamai

Compared 5% of the time

AWS Global Accelerator vs Akamai

Compared 4% of the time

Windows Azure CDN vs Akamai

Compared 4% of the time

More Akamai Competitors

Azure Front Door vs Amazon CloudFront

Compared 61% of the time

Windows Azure CDN vs Amazon CloudFront

Compared 5% of the time

Edgio vs Amazon CloudFront

Compared 3% of the time

Fastly vs Amazon CloudFront

Compared 3% of the time

AWS Global Accelerator vs Amazon CloudFront

Compared 3% of the time

More Amazon CloudFront Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

January 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Akamai

January 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Amazon CloudFront

January 2025

Download Amazon CloudFront product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

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Cloudflare

Akamai

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Overview

Cloudflare is a highly-regarded Content Delivery Network (CDN) and a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) protection solution. The robust global connectivity cloud platform that is Cloudflare ensures users are able to connect to the Internet quickly, securely, and reliably. Cloudflare is one of the world's largest networks in the marketplace today. Using Cloudflare, businesses, educational entities, NGOs, vloggers, bloggers, and anyone else with an internet presence can experience more secure, faster websites and applications.

Currently, there are millions of Internet locations on Cloudflare, and the Cloudflare network
continues to grow every day by the thousands. The solution is able to fulfill the requests for
millions of websites seamlessly and serves on average 45 million HTTP requests per second.

Cloudflare has safe, secure data centers in close to 300 cities worldwide to ensure every
client request is filled as quickly as possible. It is Cloudflare’s edge network that makes this
possible by keeping content and other services as close to each client as possible, so the
information requests are always only seconds away.

Many organizations that work in democracy, civil society, human rights, or the arts are able to
access Cloudflare's highest levels of protection for free via Project Galileo. Additionally, official
election websites can be secured from hacking and fraud through Cloudflare’s Project
Athenian, also at no additional cost.

Cloudflare can also help organizations of all sizes develop a robust zero-trust strategy to
ensure the highest levels of productivity and profitability. Employees, stakeholders, and end users have a greater level of satisfaction and overall improved user experience, which can, in
turn, result in higher revenues and overall ROI. Zero-trust and BYOD (bring your own device)
access ensure end users and employees always have the best resources and technology
available to them at all times.

Cloudflare benefits

Cloudflare has many benefits. Some of its most valuable benefits include:

- Faster load times

- Robust DNS security

- Intuitive cloud Web Application Firewall (WAF)

- Free universal SSL

- Image enhancement

- Automatic browser caching

- Next-generation cloud load balancer

- Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

- Rate limiting

- Minification

- Zero-trust capabilities

- Cost-effective

- Reduced carbon footprint

Reviews from real users

“Many websites require an SSL certificate because they sell stuff and want SSL. Cloudflare
comes with an SSL certificate built in. It's automatic. You sign yourself up for Cloudflare, and
an SSL certificate automatically protects your website. If you have a connection between your
website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host, you don't necessarily need a
certificate.” Spencer M., Owner at Tech Exchange

“What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage
applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare
also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering,
so it's a valuable tool.” Daniel P., Network Engineer at Ufinet

“The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is the GUI. You are able to control the solution very
well through the interface. There is a lot of functionality that is embedded in the service.” PeerSpot user, Competence Center Manager at a tech services company

Akamai is a powerful solution that aims to enhance the performance and reliability of websites and applications. With features like excellent performance, robust security measures, and efficient content delivery, it optimizes user experience. It also offers bandwidth optimization, caching, online asset security, and protection against DDoS attacks. Users value its wide network coverage and reliable customer support.

Amazon CloudFront is a global content delivery network (CDN) service that accelerates delivery of your websites, APIs, video content or other web assets. It integrates with other Amazon Web Services products to give developers and businesses an easy way to accelerate content to end users with no minimum usage commitments. Amazon CloudFront can be used to deliver your entire website, including dynamic, static, streaming, and interactive content using a global network of edge locations. Requests for your content are automatically routed to the nearest edge location, so content is delivered with the best possible performance. Amazon CloudFront is optimized to work with other Amazon Web Services, like Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Elastic Load Balancing, and Amazon Route 53. Amazon CloudFront also works seamlessly with any non-AWS origin server, which stores the original, definitive versions of your files. Like other Amazon Web Services products, there are no long-term contracts or minimum monthly usage commitments for using Amazon CloudFront – you pay only for as much or as little content as you actually deliver through the content delivery service.

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

Buyer's Guide

Akamai vs. Amazon CloudFront

January 2025

Free Report: Akamai vs. Amazon CloudFront

Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai vs. Amazon CloudFront and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

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