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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

Akamai
Ranking in CDN
4th
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 September 2026, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Akamai is 11.3%, down from 16.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon CloudFront is 5.1%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CDN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon CloudFront5.1%
Akamai11.3%
Other83.6%
CDN
 

Featured Reviews

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

"Akamai is leveraged by many top-level businesses, ensuring reliability and support in case of outages or issues."
"With 300 servers deployed worldwide, it's highly scalable and is the best web application firewall on the market."
"Our primary use case for this solution is data transfer, and we deploy the solution on private cloud."
"The initial setup is simple, especially for SaaS solutions."
"The solution is very sustainable and flexible."
"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."
"The solution's most valuable feature is that it has been quite helpful in our company, especially when it comes to applications needing updates frequently."
"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."
"If you're using AWS entirely, it's smooth sailing."
"Edge configuration and availability are vital features for easy content drop-off requests"
"It has built-in DDoS protection, which protects against DDoS attacks."
"The solution has many features that are comprehensive."
"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."
"One of the most valuable features of CloudFront is the reduced latency due to its edge locations, which results in a very fast delivery of data."
"Amazon CloudFront is a stable solution."
"The product’s most valuable feature is the availability of the websites."
 

Cons

"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."
"The product's scalability can be improved since certain shortcomings regarding the security part of the solution currently exist."
"Sometimes a little hard to navigate around the user console."
"Caching strategy is an area with certain shortcomings in the solution where improvements are required."
"Akamai's configuration part is an area of concern where improvements are required to make the process easy."
"After three or four months from this perspective, I don’t know all the features on the platform yet, so I am still learning about it."
"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."
"Costing-wise and integration with other tools need improvement, especially API security."
"There is room for improvement in customer service and support."
"It might benefit from multi-region support to enhance performance."
"The user interface could be improved."
"The solution could be more simplified for new users. It could be more user-friendly."
"Improvements are needed as per customer requirements."
"They could be expanding the number of locations available. It will help users easily access content."
"Amazon CloudFront's setup is a bit difficult, and we would love it if they made it easier."
"Its price is really high and can be improved. From the technology perspective, they should have some multi-platform integration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Akamai is an expensive tool. Moreover, we have a pay-as-you-go model for additional features."
"The price of Akamai could be less expensive."
"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."
"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."
"Quite high in price, but equivalent to other enterprise products on the market"
"This is a very expensive solution but it works well."
"The price of the solution depends upon its usage."
"The solution's pricing is based on bandwidth."
"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."
"I rate Amazon CloudFront's pricing a five out of ten."
"Compared to competitors like Azure and Google, we find AWS pricing to be advantageous."
"I rate the product's pricing an eight out of ten. The licensing follows a pay-as-you-go model."
"Amazon CloudFront costs less than third-party services."
"Amazon's pricing varies depending on the data transfer."
"We do not have many options to optimize costs."
"The policies and prices keep on changing frequently with AWS solutions"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise17
 

Questions from the Community

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 could make some cases less complex to set up. There could be improvements in ho...
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 where AWS is one of the targets. We are building up websites that we are pointing to...
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 CloudFront global content delivery network was the better fit for us. We decided to go w...
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 expensive.
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 a bit confusing at first—there are a lot of settings, and it’s not always clear ...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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: September 2026.
912,801 professionals have used our research since 2012.