Cloudflare vs IBM NS1 Connect comparison

Cloudflare and IBM are both solutions in the Managed DNS category. Cloudflare is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.4, while IBM is ranked #12. Additionally, 95% of Cloudflare users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Cloudflare

Read 70 Cloudflare reviews

41,020 Views
28,711 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

IBM NS1 Connect

Read 11 IBM NS1 Connect reviews

2,704 Views
1,331 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Cloudflare

IBM NS1 Connect

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cloudflare and IBM NS1 Connect based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Managed DNS solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Cloudflare vs. IBM NS1 Connect Report (Updated: July 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare vs. IBM NS1 Connect

July 2024

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Helped 800,688 peers since 2012

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare

Ranking in Managed DNS

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

CDN (1st), Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (10th)

IBM NS1 Connect

Ranking in Managed DNS

12th

Average Rating

9.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Featured Reviews

reviewer2198715

DevOps Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Jun 1, 2023

A stable and scalable DNS management tool to secure websites and servers

The most valuable feature of the solution is the proxy, so I can hide my servers. So no one can scan them, especially for port scanning, since we were hacked once. I did buy a VPS server, and I was just getting started. So I started MongoDB and left the port open. Someone scanned the website and saw the open port, and since I was just starting, I didn't set a password. He managed to get in, and he locked the database and locked all the data (ransomware). When using Cloudflare, I was sure that no one knew my real server IP address.

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Michael Wills

Senior Network Systems Engineer at McKesson

Jun 8, 2022

Balances cost and functionality, speeds up provisioning, and reduces the DNS maintenance work drastically

The provisioning is great. They have an API service that is simple to use and very quick. The changes that we make are replicated worldwide in a matter of usually milliseconds, sometimes seconds. They are done very rapidly. That's something that's obviously priceless when we're dealing with things like DNS. It is great as an API-first platform for DNS and application traffic management. It is very simple to use. It allows us to rapidly provision and deprovision things. We are all around happy with the solution. From a metrics standpoint, the solution that we came from had no metrics. So, it has been great. Their service team is excellent in taking the time to provide reports for both growth and strategic planning. It has been great.

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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 solution automatically detects and responds to certain types of traffic based on geolocation."

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

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

"Cloudflare has many features."

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

"I get a lot of value from Cloudflare's API because it enables you to build a separate environment inside the solution. You can create a domain for performing test requests before you move to the production environment and connect various domains."

"Cloudflare is a security SaaS provider that provides security and protects us from any application layer attack."

"The simplicity of the overall dashboard makes it a great product for a user like me who has less understanding of the internet than a developer or other more technical people. It gives me peace of mind. I also love the easy customization of the Page Rules."

More Cloudflare pros

"We leverage two things from Managed DNS that we couldn't do with any other solution. One is their filter chain technology, which allows us to shift some of the intelligence we need for the traffic steering to the DNS. The second one is data sources, which enables us to manipulate multiple records simultaneously using NS1's internal message DOS. In our case, we are trying to direct the traffic in over 150,000 different NS1 records to an arbitrary set of repeating responses."

"It massively speeds things up. Today, we allow developers to deploy services and have externally facing DNS scrapers that are created automatically without the addition of human intervention."

"For starters, it integrates with Terraform and a lot of our infrastructure is effectively built out using Terraform. That makes all this stuff extremely easy... when we deploy, all the entries are created and configuration is done."

"The provisioning is great. They have an API service that is simple to use and very quick. The changes that we make are replicated worldwide in a matter of usually milliseconds, sometimes seconds. They are done very rapidly. That's something that's obviously priceless when we're dealing with things like DNS."

"Monitoring is really important for us. We really care about reliability, and we want to make sure that we can remove some points of presence in our sector and in our edge network really fast when we experience any problems. So, monitoring that NS1 provides for DNS is really important for us."

"One of the features that is non-standard and that is very useful is the filtered DNS. We have set up our external VPN, which is what all our employees connect through, to use this feature. It's geolocation-aware. In that way, for India we set it up so that these are the servers that should be supporting things, and in the UK these servers, in the U.S. these servers, and in Sweden these ones."

"Everything we download into our observability platform so that we can also track any changes in traffic behavior or things like that is also something that we use quite a lot. I'd say traffic management, the speed of updates, and observability are the top three things that we use."

"We find that the low latency access to DNS queries has a direct effect on the customer experience. Visiting a site, whether it's an AdTech-based solution or marketing tech, the fact that whatever we're rendering on a page can be rendered better than the industry standard, in terms of time, ensures a better user experience."

More IBM NS1 Connect pros

Cons

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

"Cloudflare's console should be made more user-friendly."

"It would be good if Cloudflare could have more servers for better traffic routing or an increase in the traffic routed. This is what I'd like to improve in Cloudflare."

"DNS Management."

"The solution could be more user-friendly."

"There might be helpful if there was some web application firewall feature."

"Cloudflare should add more documentation and pricing to the cloud version."

"There should be a specific price list for enterprise-level customers."

More Cloudflare cons

"We care about monitoring and telemetry work, and NS1 provides a pretty good system for monitoring. We can monitor our endpoints and points of presence around the world. If there are any issues, we can easily remove them from our network, but this area needs some improvement because it is not always reliable in NS1. In the past, we had a number of false-positive cases when the monitoring system told us about some problems in our infrastructure that were not true. NS1 is improving the system, and we are constantly talking about this with them. I know that they are releasing a new version of their monitoring system, which is really important for us, but this is a different area where we would expect them to improve."

"I would love to see improvement in the testing capabilities they provide. They have a simulate-filter feature so that you can simulate how your traffic would flow, based on their Filter Chains. I believe that was shut off for quite some time. Having that as a way to test our load-balanced CDN structure would be fantastic."

"The reporting metrics are great from an API standpoint, but it would be a little bit nicer if there was some type of dashboard around that. There should also be some type of reporting that's more executive-level focused."

"The Filter Chain simulation is really good in the UI, but it would be nice to have something similar in the API so that we could simulate and test things before we deploy them."

"We use our client in our infrastructure to communicate with NS1. This client is a bit complex in the way that it is set up. NS1 has their own client solution that you can deploy into your platform to do this, but even that is a bit complex. So, I would like a very simple, thin, light API agent that we can deploy into our platform to communicate with NS1. That would be welcome."

"I would like to see the UI updated to allow me to do finer searches. I would also like to have the ability to get reports that can sort based on various metrics. For example, I would like to be able to say, "Show me the top 10 records by total queries" in an easy-to-digest format."

"We would really like them to become a DNS registrar."

"We use the geo load balancing functionality and there are a couple of things that are helpful there. But the language itself is something we had to get used to a little bit. Some of my folks made a few mistakes in rolling out the Filter Chain...The Filter Chain setup is a bit hard to grasp at first. It would also be nice to have a way to simulate changes in addition to staging."

More IBM NS1 Connect cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."

"We are using the free version."

"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 is reasonable."

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

"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."

"I believe their performance has improved, but I'd like to refrain from discussing the pricing aspect related to the cloud. The pricing, in my opinion, could be simplified, and I think they should consider reevaluating the pricing for support, as it can be quite high. At times, this cost can make it challenging to choose CARFAGuard or opt for the support."

"A free version of the solution is available."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"We pay about $30,000 a month. We used to pay about $20,000 with Dyn every month, for lower volume than we're doing right now, but it had none of the features that we have available with NS1, so it was worth it for us. It seems competitive for us, given that we're doing 4.5 billion requests."

"Everything can always be cheaper, but as it is today the pricing is fair."

"From a cost standpoint, it's certainly not the most expensive out there, and it's also not the cheapest, but it does well to balance the cost and the functionality/reliability."

"The cost of this product is one of the reasons that we chose it."

"NS1's pricing is much more aggressive than its competitors in the market and you get more value out of what you pay for it."

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Comparison Review

it_user68487

Security Expert with 51-200 employees

Nov 6, 2013

CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Web Application Firewall

CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Round 2 Web Application Firewall Comparative Penetration Testing Analysis Report v1.0 Summary This document contains the results of a second comparative penetration test conducted by a team of security specialists at Zero Science Lab against two cloud-based Web…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

25%

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

19%

Financial Services Firm

13%

University

Comms Service Provider

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 GRE tunnels. We have decreased site load times on Mobile 3G from 8 to 1,6 seconds ...

See all answers

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 that offers great redundancy and advanced security with built-in unmetered and ...

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 NS1 Managed DNS?

For starters, Managed DNS from NS1 is an easy way to get the job done. Whether you're a novice or a pro, Managed DNS Providers provide all of the tools necessary for efficient and reliable DNS mana...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 50% of the time

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Compared 4% of the time

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Compared 4% of the time

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Compared 4% of the time

Google Cloud DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

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Compared 23% of the time

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Compared 15% of the time

Neustar UltraDNS vs IBM NS1 Connect

Compared 8% of the time

Hurricane Electric Free DNS vs IBM NS1 Connect

Compared 6% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs IBM NS1 Connect

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

September 2024

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM NS1 Connect

August 2024

Download IBM NS1 Connect product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

NS1 Managed DNS, NS1

Learn More

Cloudflare

IBM

Overview

Cloudflare is a highly-regarded Content Delivery Network (CDN) and a Distribution Denial of Service (DDoS) protection solution. The robust global 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 use the solution and 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 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.” A PeerSpot user who is a Competence Center Manager at a tech services company.

Why

In a 24/7 world, customers demand applications, websites, and content that load instantly and are always on. When those connections are unreliable or slow, businesses don’t meet customer expectations, causing customers to leave. When that occurs, revenue may suffer.

What

IBM NS1 Connect delivers the high-performance, reliable, secure network connectivity that businesses need to meet increasingly sophisticated customer expectations. Leveraging a global network with a 100% uptime SLA, IBM has the capacity and scale to meet the needs of any business. IBM NS1 Connect takes performance to the next level, powering the sophisticated needs of enterprises with complex network infrastructures.

How

IBM NS1 Connect provides network connectivity solutions that give networking teams the visibility, control and automation needed to help ensure your business stays online by steering traffic to the ideal network connections for any given moment. IBM NS1 Connect also enables IT teams to identify network performance anomalies through deep insights into DNS data flows, allowing them to identify configuration problems or network issues that affect performance so they can quickly resolve them.

Details

IBM NS1 Connect is a managed service that provides authoritative, premium DNS and advanced, customizable traffic steering that improves application performance and network resilience. Revenue-generating applications require authoritative DNS resolution to keep critical applications and websites online. Unless your DNS infrastructure is always-on and resilient, network reliability and user experience will suffer, your network reliability may suffer, resulting in poor user experiences if revenue-generating critical applications and websites are not online. IBM NS1 Connect’s always-on, API-first architecture provides fast, secure connections to users anywhere in the world with premium DNS and advanced, customizable traffic steering. It also enables your IT teams to efficiently monitor networks, deploy changes and conduct routine maintenance.

IBM NS1 Connect uses the Domain Name System (DNS) to ensure that websites and applications are:

Online, all the time: Global network with 100% uptime SLA and DDoS protection
Fast: Top tier response and propagation times, custom traffic steering to optimize connections
Cheaper to run: Far less expensive than self-hosting
Automation friendly: API-first platform with Ansible/Terraform integrations and support for Pliant rapid network automation
Easier to troubleshoot: Unique DNS data insights offering

Designed for enterprises looking to optimize their DNS performance, IBM NS1 Connect is a managed service delivering authoritative DNS and advanced traffic steering that improves application performance and network resilience and provides fast, secure connections to users anywhere in the world. NS1 Connect streamlines DNS management by automating both simple and complex DNS configuration tasks via API and preconfigured integrations, so you can spend more time on higher-value work.

IBM NS1 Connect is delivered through our unified delivery platform. The cloud-based platform gives networking teams the visibility, control and automation needed to help ensure your business stays online by steering traffic to the ideal network connections for any given moment. IBM NS1 Connect solutions also enable IT teams to identify network performance anomalies through deep insights into DNS data flows, allowing them to identify configuration problems or network issues that affect performance so they can quickly resolve them.

For enterprises looking to further optimize DNS performance, IBM NS1 Connect offers rich DNS data analytics to streamline the identification of the root cause of anomalies within traffic.

IBM NS1 Connect Features

Global anycast DNS network: Enjoy fast connections to consumers around the globe through an anycast network with 26 points of presence (PoPs).
100% uptime SLA on DNS resolution: Maximize uptime and revenue generation with resilient, always-on, authoritative DNS.
API-first architecture: Integrate and automate workflows with NS1 Connect's well-documented API; every line of code starts as an API call, all functionality is available through the API.
Real-time user monitoring (RUM)-based traffic steering: Uses real-time intelligence on network performance and availability to direct DNS connections to the best available application resource; the widest range of filter options and data sources in the industry, not data that is extrapolated from sampling; the most flexible, granular controls for your network.
Built-in resilience: Add a single-tenant, redundant DNS layer and manage it from a single control plane as your primary DNS.
Managed DNS for China: Improve performance for the Chinese mainland by segmenting traffic with NS1 Connect’s Managed DNS for China.
DNS insights: Get a better understanding of DNS traffic patterns by mining your DNS data to identify security issues, misconfigurations and performance issues.
DDoS protection: Cap your query-based spending with protection against unexpected surges in traffic from distributed denial-of-service attacks.
Uptime monitor: Quickly identify issues and automatically adjust DNS traffic steering configurations with native health check alerts.
DevOps tool integrations: Preconfigured integrations with leading DevOps tools including Ansible and Terraform to help automate routine maintenance, manage data sources and feeds.
Propagation speed: fastest propagation in the industry, measured in seconds not minutes; worldwide propagation in under five seconds.
Independence: neutral arbiter between infrastructure services (CDNs, clouds).

IBM NS1 Connect helps enterprises modernize and optimize networking infrastructure to provide customers with faster connections to websites, applications, services and content.

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.

Avast Software, Bloomberg L.P., BBC, Carfax, CNBC LLC, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Disney Streaming, Dropbox, EBAY Inc, Gannett Media Corp, Salesforce, Wayfair, Workday

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare vs. IBM NS1 Connect

July 2024

Free Report: Cloudflare vs. IBM NS1 Connect

Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare vs. IBM NS1 Connect and other solutions. Updated: July 2024.

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