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Akamai vs Fastly comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 31, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Akamai
Ranking in CDN
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Fastly
Ranking in CDN
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (18th), Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Akamai is 15.7%, up from 15.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fastly is 3.5%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CDN
 

Featured Reviews

XYX ABC - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 27, 2023
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.
Nick Wilsdon - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 29, 2023
An easily scalable and stable product that provides exceptional support
I use the product mostly for its Compute@Edge capabilities. Fastly is a content delivery network with various functions inside CDN. It has a functionality around security. It also has a content delivery functionality, which is a more standard function within CDN. If you are accessing a website…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution can be used for web , video and media caching and streaming."
"The solution is very sustainable and flexible."
"We can see how much traffic can be downloaded on the portal."
"Akamai's scalability is good."
"The solution's technical support is very good...The installation phase of Akamai was easy."
"The solution's technical support is very prompt and good."
"Akamai is leveraged by many top-level businesses, ensuring reliability and support in case of outages or issues."
"Akamai provides low-latency throughput."
"Compute@Edge features are valuable to me."
"Support is good; the product works as advertised. We have a Slack connection with them. So we can basically ask for help, live, engage, and ring when they respond. Very quickly."
"The product's initial setup phase is straightforward."
"Fastly uses configuration versioning, where you can deploy a new version in less than one minute."
"Rate limiting is a good feature that protects from volumetric attacks."
"Its initial setup process is straightforward."
"The product helps our organization to access sites located in different regions quickly."
 

Cons

"Akamai's configuration part is an area of concern where improvements are required to make the process easy."
"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."
"I would like to see improvements in the security aspect. The web application firewall needs to be enhanced and offers more customization options."
"Caching strategy is an area with certain shortcomings in the solution where improvements are required."
"It would be better if we could be notified about specific attacks."
"The solution could offer more integrations."
"I'd like to see improvements in log files and data visualizations within the interface."
"Costing-wise and integration with other tools need improvement, especially API security."
"The product should provide improved bot detection and management."
"The solution's pricing could be better."
"What I don't like about Fastly is that they charge a heavy price."
"Support is not that great."
"Fastly's customer service area needs improvement."
"Stronger analytics would be helpful, like showing configurations that haven't served a certain amount of traffic in a while. With many properties, things can get lost track of - duplicates or unused configurations not properly decommissioned."
"It is missing a "staging" platform to deploy a test configuration with all of the real settings, which would allow us to properly test before putting it into production."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Akamai is an expensive tool. Moreover, we have a pay-as-you-go model for additional features."
"The solution's pricing is based on bandwidth."
"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."
"This is a very expensive solution but it works well."
"The solution can be one of the more expensive options, reflecting their established market position."
"I've generally found Fastly to be very competitive in pricing, especially around Compute@Edge."
"The solution is cheaper than other products in the market."
"Fastly is less expensive than one of its competitors."
"It is an expensive solution."
"In my opinion, Fastly is priced competitively."
"You need to pay a premium price for the tool."
"The pricing has been very competitive."
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Comparison Review

it_user69348 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
27%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Akamai?
The most valuable feature in managing web traffic has been the ability to handle vertical scaling effectively.
What needs improvement with Akamai?
Costing-wise and integration with other tools need improvement, especially API security.
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.
What do you like most about Fastly?
Support is good; the product works as advertised. We have a Slack connection with them. So we can basically ask for help, live, engage, and ring when they respond. Very quickly.
What needs improvement with Fastly?
What I don't like about Fastly is that they charge a heavy price. The pricing is different per region. If you have a customer who is international and has deployments in different regions, it is ve...
 

Comparisons

 

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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
Twitter, Airbnb, Alaska Airlines, Pinterest, Vimeo, The Guardian, The New York Times, Ticketmaster, The Drupal Association, Opera, about.com, imgur, Etsy, Foursquare, GitHub, New Relic, shopify, Shazam, Firebase
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai vs. Fastly and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.