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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), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (9th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (2nd), Managed DNS (1st), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (5th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th)
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 August 2026, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 15.0%, down from 21.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai is 11.6%, down from 16.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon CloudFront is 5.3%, down from 7.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CDN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cloudflare15.0%
Amazon CloudFront5.3%
Akamai11.6%
Other68.1%
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

"For businesses that don't have a dedicated security team, I think it's a better product; it's more intuitive for people like us."
"The solution automatically detects and responds to certain types of traffic based on geolocation."
"The technical support is good."
"The solution is stable, and the DNS servers are simple to use."
"The attacker won't have details since my public IP is anonymous. It offers us good privacy."
"I didn’t have to pay anything for better website security and reduced server load."
"Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications."
"Generally, I am satisfied with this product."
"The initial setup is simple, especially for SaaS solutions."
"This is a very expensive solution but it works well."
"The solution's technical support is very prompt and good."
"Akamai support is excellent because they have great debugging tools, and they are highly competent, with proactive and responsive engineers whenever we have issues, so everything is pretty smooth."
"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."
"All the policies of the CDNs are very beneficial."
"The stability and efficiency of Akamai have enhanced our network's performance significantly."
"Akamai is leveraged by many top-level businesses, ensuring reliability and support in case of outages or issues."
"Edge configuration and availability are vital features for easy content drop-off requests"
"Amazon CloudFront provides valuable security by ensuring secure file access when accessing files from S3."
"The product is very well interconnected with other Amazon services."
"The product provides reduced latency and quicker site refreshes."
"Its main advantage is that it offers something in this region that wasn't available before; previously, you had to go outside of the region to get the same level of service that you can now access right here in Bahrain. It's truly incredible. Building this IX has significantly changed how traffic is handled. The technical support is good. The initial setup is very straightforward. I rate the solution a perfect ten."
"The distribution aspect of CloudFront and its ability to reduce latency are most beneficial."
"CloudFront provides a common access point, manages routing to different methods, and serves as an access point plus API routing."
"I would definitely recommend this product."
 

Cons

"DNS Management."
"Cloudflare should add more documentation and pricing to the cloud version."
"The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Cloudflare are a bit on the higher side overall."
"I would like Cloudflare to offer a dedicated account manager for large enterprise clients like us."
"An integrated SSO feature would be useful for Cloudflare DNS."
"There might be helpful if there was some web application firewall feature."
"It should have easier documentation for the configuration. It's very technical and people who aren't technical should also be able to do the configuration."
"For the services I am using, it is a bit expensive."
"Sometimes a little hard to navigate around the user console."
"It would be better if we could be notified about specific attacks."
"The product's scalability can be improved since certain shortcomings regarding the security part of the solution currently exist."
"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 price of Akamai could be less expensive."
"I would like to see improvements in the security aspect. The web application firewall needs to be enhanced and offers more customization options."
"When we open tickets, we have a delay in response times."
"On the commercials and pricing based on the region, they might have to work a bit because sometimes we lose on commercials."
"The UI could be more user-friendly."
"Its price is really high and can be improved. From the technology perspective, they should have some multi-platform integration."
"Support needs to be enhanced."
"The distribution networks need to be a little bit more user-friendly in the way that new users are not able to configure the CloudFront distribution as easily as experienced users."
"There is room for improvement in customer service and support."
"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."
"The lack of seamless integration made the setup process more complex and required additional research to manage all the services properly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"We don't have any issues with the price."
"The solution has many features but there are ones that you need to pay for. Sometimes you have to find out which is available for free and which you have to pay for."
"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."
"It's a premium model. You can start at zero and work your way up to the enterprise model, which has a very high pricing level."
"A free version of the solution is available."
"I give the price a five out of ten."
"The price of the solution is 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."
"Quite high in price, but equivalent to other enterprise products on the market"
"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."
"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 solution can be one of the more expensive options, reflecting their established market position."
"The price of the solution depends upon its usage."
"The price of Akamai could be less expensive."
"The solution's pricing is based on bandwidth."
"The product could improve its price."
"I rate Amazon CloudFront's pricing a five out of ten."
"Amazon's pricing varies depending on the data transfer."
"I rate the product's pricing an eight out of ten. The licensing follows a pay-as-you-go model."
"The product has a mid-range pricing."
"For CloudFront, I'm quite satisfied with the pricing. Initially, it doesn't require many resources for this specific solution."
"Amazon CloudFront is an expensive solution."
"The solution’s price is reasonable."
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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
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
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: August 2026.
908,344 professionals have used our research since 2012.