Cloudflare and IBM NS1 Connect compete in the DNS and network security category. Cloudflare seems to have the upper hand due to its user-friendly features and competitive pricing, while IBM NS1 Connect’s advanced functionality justifies its higher cost for many users.
Features: Cloudflare offers robust security features, easy setup, and user-friendly interface. IBM NS1 Connect provides advanced traffic management, high configurability, and extensive features for complex requirements.
Room for Improvement: Cloudflare could benefit from more advanced customization options, improved performance analytics, and deeper functionality for advanced users. IBM NS1 Connect users desire a more intuitive interface, faster support response times, and reduced complexity for new users.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cloudflare is recognized for its quick deployment process and responsive customer service. IBM NS1 Connect may face longer deployment times due to its complexity but offers comprehensive support once set up.
Pricing and ROI: Cloudflare is more cost-effective with quicker ROI due to lower setup costs. IBM NS1 Connect’s higher expense is justified by its extensive features and long-term benefits, attracting users needing powerful functionalities despite the higher investment.
The representatives are knowledgeable and online documentation is great.
Enterprise support is amazing. It's 10 out of 10.
This would help us address issues promptly, especially during unforeseen events like DDoS attacks.
They are very knowledgeable, not only about their product but about general DNS protocols, from performance to global interconnectivity.
They provide good updates about progress or status on their side, and we can even discuss the next steps.
They communicate well and provide feedback that's not only technical but easy to understand if you're not technical.
In CloudFlare's case, I need to get an external server, set up the redirection there using Apache or NGINX and put my own SSL certificates there.
The feature shows a cached version of your live site if your host is offline.
Hybrid deployments would be useful where you could move the traffic from the enterprise to the cloud.
We can monitor our endpoints and points of presence around the world.
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.
Right now, as far as I understand, there is no way to do atomic changes to a DNS configuration. You need to make changes record by record and apply.
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.
Scalability is not a problem for CloudFlare since they are a cloud based solution.
They're expanding and have enough resources worldwide.
We run more than 4.5 billion queries per month on our DNS, so it's pretty critical that they can handle that volume and it's been going pretty well so far.
The solution has helped us to meet SLAs and customers’ demands, without adding complexity.
This product provides the scalability we need to help meet SLAs and customers' demands without adding complexity, which is very important to us.
currently we are using the $20 a month plan
The monthly cost is around $30 for three sites using the Business Cloudflare plan.
You can start at zero and work your way up to the enterprise model, which has a very high pricing level.
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.
I would say that you get what you pay for.
NS1's pricing is much more aggressive than its competitors in the market.
There were a few times when some of their CDN nodes would fail, creating serious speed issues with the site without any warning or notification from their side.
Once the webserver is installed with CloudFlare, it should work like a charm.
Since we switched to the business plan, we encounter no problems.
We have been using NS1 for a long period of time, and we have not had any major outages on the NS1 side that lead to any outage on our side.
We haven't experienced any downtime whatsoever in the past three years.
Especially, since we have the Dedicated DNS as well, our setup of NS1, as a whole, the Managed and the Dedicated, is very stable.
The aggressive caching and DDOS mitigation are the most valuable features offered by Cloudflare.
DDoS protection is what CloudFlare is known for.
Web optimization features such as ‘Automatic Content Caching’, ‘Rocket Loader’, and ‘AutoMinify’, which help to minimize the website loading time and increase the website response.
Using Pulsar with telemetry monitoring between the customer and the endpoint, we are able to detect traffic and route it appropriately, which ensures the uptime of our applications and web properties.
Indeed, the API is at the core of how we use Managed DNS. No one goes to the dashboard or manually clicks anything. Everything goes via the API, and we perform hundreds of changes every minute.
NS1 Managed DNS has helped improve our end user experience, which has sped up our time to market.
Cloudflare offers DDoS protection, security, DNS management, and CDN services to enhance website performance and security. Users benefit from improved load balancing and comprehensive security features, making it a reliable choice for managing web traffic and protecting against cyber threats.
Cloudflare is widely recognized for its comprehensive features that cater to web security and performance. Users frequently take advantage of its DDoS protection, flexible SSL options, and content optimization tools. The platform's strength in DNS management and caching ensures reduced server load and faster response times. While its user-friendly interface and resource optimization significantly enhance website performance and security, there is potential for improvement in analytics, CDN speed, and technical support.
What are Cloudflare's key features?Industries ranging from e-commerce to the financial sector implement Cloudflare to safeguard online assets and streamline traffic management. These industries leverage its CDN and security capabilities to provide fast, secure user experiences, crucial for their demanding environments. Educational institutions utilize its robust DNS management to efficiently handle high volumes of traffic while maintaining security and performance across their networks.
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:
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
IBM NS1 Connect helps enterprises modernize and optimize networking infrastructure to provide customers with faster connections to websites, applications, services and content.
We monitor all Managed DNS reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.