Akamai vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services comparison

Akamai and F5 are both solutions in the CDN category. Akamai is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.6, while F5 is ranked #11 with an average rating of 10.0. Akamai holds a 17.0% mindshare in CDN, compared to F5’s 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Akamai users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of F5 users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

Akamai and F5 Distributed Cloud Services compete in the cloud service and content delivery sector. F5 gains an edge with robust features, while Akamai is noted for its superior customer support, which some buyers consider worth the trade-off. Akamai scores higher in network performance, whereas F5 is superior in application security.

Features: Akamai provides valuable features such as advanced content delivery, excellent load balancing, and robust security capabilities. F5 Distributed Cloud Services present strong application migration solutions, comprehensive security, and enhanced cloud-native capabilities. These features align Akamai with content-driven businesses, while F5 supports application and infrastructure management.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Akamai's streamlined deployment model, combined with strong customer support, ensures ease of implementation and ongoing assistance. F5's deployment is more complex but benefits from powerful cloud-native features. Akamai's customer service is superior, whereas F5 showcases technical capabilities.

Pricing and ROI: Akamai generally requires a higher setup cost but offers consistent ROI due to efficient content delivery. F5 Distributed Cloud Services' pricing is more competitive, optimizing long-term ROI by enhancing operational efficiency. Akamai's higher cost is justified by performance benefits, while F5 presents a cost-effective choice for cloud-native applications.

To learn more, read our detailed Akamai vs. F5 Distributed Cloud Services Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Akamai vs. F5 Distributed Cloud Services

April 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 April 2025, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 22.7%, up from 21.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai is 17.0%, up from 16.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Distributed Cloud Services is 0.9%, up from 0.2% 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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Filip Mikulik

IT Analyst at Atlas.cz, a.s.

Protects web applications with comprehensive security features

All features are valuable. In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation. This is a comprehensive package for web application security. The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation.

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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

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

"DDoS attacks target unprotected machines. Cloudflare detects and stops these attacks using internal systems. It identifies incoming DDoS attacks, issuing challenges or blocking them immediately."

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

"New and innovative way to protect the client's data."

"We're using dynamic components to build flexible pages to create and manage Git merge requests for code and reviews."

"It is easier to configure and develop documentation to see how we have configured firewalls."

"It's very user-friendly."

"Cloudflare DNS is widely used, and it's good for websites. If we use Cloudflare DNS and update one record, it updates in their office instantly."

More Cloudflare pros

"With 300 servers deployed worldwide, it's highly scalable and is the best web application firewall on the market."

"The worldwide reach of the Akamai CDN is one of the key values of this CDN and the agreements worldwide that they keep running."

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

"All the policies of the CDNs are very beneficial."

"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 initial setup is simple, especially for SaaS solutions."

"Akamai's scalability is good."

"It's a scalable and reliable solution."

More Akamai pros

"In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation."

"The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation."

"F5 is known for being the best load balancer in the market. Customers with an existing module can easily adopt additional modules without investing in new hardware."

Cons

"Although I think it's quite good, it doesn't provide me with all the features I would expect to have if I were using Imperva."

"If they improve on the placement of their data centers, it would be better. I'm living in a remote area. I would like to connect to them without any kind of lag."

"I think the APIs are a little bit hard for us to work with. The APIs could be more open so that we could integrate better with our SolarWinds or our monitoring solution."

"Cloudflare's free plan is limited to 5,000 records for their free plan. They should increase that. For example, if I create a domain called abc.com and a subdomain called a.abc.com, my record count will be two. I can make a maximum of 5,000 subdomains. However, if we use our own DNS hosted on another provider, there is no limit. Their free plan also lacks name server customization."

"There could be more courses with engineers. I like e-learning, however, having a specialist in a classroom is more comfortable for me."

"It would be beneficial for us if Cloudflare could offer a scrubbing solution. This would involve taking a snapshot of my website and keeping it live during a DDoS attack, ensuring uninterrupted service for our users. DDoS attacks are typically short in duration, and having Cloudflare maintain the site's availability from its secure network would enhance the overall user experience. I would appreciate it if Cloudflare could consider implementing this feature. Many organizations already utilize similar capabilities in their CDN platforms, where a static snapshot of the web page is displayed during DDoS attacks. In terms of features, Cloudflare needs to enhance its resilience and stay more focused on adopting new technologies. For instance, solutions like F5 XC Box, Access Solution, and Distributed Cloud Solution have impressive features, and Cloudflare should strive to match and exceed those capabilities. There's a need for improvement in areas like AI-based DDoS attacks and Layer 7 WAF features. Cloudflare should prioritize enhancements in areas such as behavioral DDoS and protection against SQL injection attacks, considering the prevalent trend of public exposure to the internet for business reasons. Overall, Cloudflare needs to invest more in advancing its feature set."

"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."

"I believe they currently have this feature, but there will most likely be integration with APIs so we can control some features through API."

More Cloudflare cons

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

"I would like to see improvements in the security aspect. The web application firewall needs to be enhanced and offers more customization options."

"Sometimes a little hard to navigate around the user console."

"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."

"Akamai should improve its integrations."

"Caching strategy is an area with certain shortcomings in the solution where improvements are required."

"I'd like to see more Web 3.0 and IoT solutions."

"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."

More Akamai cons

"The pricing could be adjusted to better meet the needs of typical customers in regions like Poland, where the product is considered too expensive."

"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF."

"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF. There are some problems, mainly from the perspective of implementation and customer expectations, which sometimes differ from reality."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."

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

"The product's pricing is cheap."

"A free version of the solution is available."

"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."

"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."

"The price is reasonable."

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

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"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."

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

"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's pricing is based on bandwidth."

"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."

"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."

More Akamai pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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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…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

19%

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

23%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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...

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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.

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What do you like most about Akamai?

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

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What needs improvement with Akamai?

Akamai could improve by having a more robust and responsive support team. While the support is not bad, there is room...

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What is your primary use case for Akamai?

We use Akamai ( /products/akamai-reviews ) as our CDN ( /categories/cdn ) to advertise prefixes and download traffic....

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?

I am not involved in sales, so I do not deal with the pricing aspect directly. I give the cost of the solution a four...

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What needs improvement with F5 Distributed Cloud Services?

It's a long way to be perfect, of course, as with all solutions. The main issue is integration with other parts or pr...

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What is your primary use case for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?

There are two main use cases for Distributed Call Services: DDoS or Distributed attacks protection and WAF web applic...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Amazon Route 53 vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

Imperva DDoS vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

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Azure Front Door vs Akamai

Compared 22% of the time

Imperva DDoS vs Akamai

Compared 13% of the time

Fastly vs Akamai

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon CloudFront vs Akamai

Compared 5% of the time

Qwilt vs Akamai

Compared 2% of the time

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F5 Silverline Managed Services vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 27% of the time

Akamai API Security vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 14% of the time

Imperva Web Application Firewall vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 11% of the time

Azure Front Door vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 11% of the time

F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 9% of the time

More F5 Distributed Cloud Services Competitors

Product Reports

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Cloudflare

April 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Akamai

April 2025

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Buyer's Guide

CDN

April 2025

Download F5 Distributed Cloud Services product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

No data available

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

Cloudflare

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.

Akamai

F5 Distributed Cloud Services excel in enhancing security, optimizing web application delivery, and ensuring robust network performance. Users value its integrated Web Application Firewall, DDoS protection, global server load balancing, and intuitive management interface. It boosts organizational efficiency, reduces operational costs, and scales seamlessly, making it essential for businesses operating in distributed environments.

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

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Akamai vs. F5 Distributed Cloud Services

April 2025

Free Report: Akamai vs. F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai vs. F5 Distributed Cloud Services and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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