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Akamai Edge DNS vs Azure DNS vs Cloudflare comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Managed DNS category, the mindshare of Akamai Edge DNS is 1.3%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure DNS is 8.0%, down from 8.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cloudflare is 33.8%, down from 35.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed DNS Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cloudflare33.8%
Azure DNS8.0%
Akamai Edge DNS1.3%
Other56.900000000000006%
Managed DNS
 

Featured Reviews

YA
Ensures global distribution and DDoS protection while offering seamless integration and low latency DNS responses
For user experience, Akamai Edge DNS should allow notes to be added for each record, as this is something Infoblox supports. Without notes, managing changes in DNS records can be difficult, especially for large companies with over 1,000 records, as they may not know who requested changes without proper documentation. I requested this feature two years ago, but it has not been added yet. Akamai Edge DNS could also improve its AI capabilities.
Dieudonné-Nsabimana - PeerSpot reviewer
Overall experience improves efficiency and lowers operational challenges
* Add native management routing (geo‑routing, failover, weighted records) directly within Azure DNS zones to reduce dependency on extra services. * Cost Efficiency: Offer bundle pricing tiers or discounts for high‑volume enterprise customers, or an option for cost‑optimized internal DNS zones. * Improved Error Diagnostics: Provide more descriptive error codes and guided troubleshooting steps in the portal or CLI.
Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch - PeerSpot reviewer
Fast and secure deployments simplify operations for government and fintech clients
It is a fast and secure DNS. It is very easy to deploy, and my customers are happy with this tool. Additionally, the CDN performance in Mexico is excellent, providing fast service and tools. It offers reliability during high-traffic periods, ensuring no impact on the environment. It helps my clients avoid using on-premise boxes, simplifying operations as they only use the prices on Cloudflare.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The high availability of Akamai Edge DNS is impressive due to their numerous POPs, which help in supporting all attacks, including DDoS counterattacks."
"I recommend Akamai Edge DNS because it is distributed globally and prevents DDoS attacks."
"We can maintain control of the configuration, and it seems to be covering the use case that we need."
"I haven't had any problems with the stability of Akamai Edge DNS in the past five years."
"It is a very stable solution since it has a security feature that allows you to recover zone files if you accidentally delete them."
"The best feature is the domain register. The other great feature is that whenever you create any resources, Azure DNS will automatically create a record for you."
"I like the feature where I can add multiple DNS records for the same subdomain."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the simplicity of putting DBs."
"Azure DNS provides end-to-end P2P connectivity and enhances security, making it more secure and reliable."
"Azure DNS provides end-to-end P2P connectivity and enhances security, making it more secure and reliable."
"The tool is easy to manage and use."
"The integration with other services on Azure is valuable."
"If you're running your enterprise application on Azure, it's convenient to use Azure DNS. It has native integration with other Azure solutions, and Microsoft is a globally recognized DNS provider. You also get CDN services. If you're a media company that requires on-demand data streaming, your DNS plays a vital role by working with CDN services to publish your application. It's cheaper and easier to expand your solution."
"We're using dynamic components to build flexible pages to create and manage Git merge requests for code and reviews."
"Cloudflare allows us to self-host services such as Rocket.Chat and Node-RED, in high-availability mode, thanks to round robin DNS which allows us to share one hostname between our two locations."
"The UI is good."
"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."
"It is easier to configure and develop documentation to see how we have configured firewalls."
"The technical support is good."
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is security."
 

Cons

"The only area that needs improvement is the pricing for DNS zones."
"The solution has a fairly complex setup with our cloud vendors, including Microsoft, Salesforce, and Oracle."
"CNAME flattening is a feature that Akamai does not support."
"Akamai Edge DNS is expensive, and the pricing is higher compared to Infoblox."
"The only area that needs improvement is the pricing for DNS zones. The price is higher than competitors, and Akamai should offer a better pricing model."
"I would like to see more security features and protection."
"Azure DNS sticks mostly with the Azure native solution and doesn't scale well in a multi-cloud or hybrid environment."
"Domain registration is one of the problems. We need to go to application services or web apps to purchase the domain instead. If that were to be equivalent to AWS's Route 53 that would be good. But, it is not as flexible as that."
"The CDN integration could be improved."
"I would like to see more integration with other platforms, improved stability, enhanced security, and better pricing because there is always room for improvement."
"Azure DNS' documentation needs to improve."
"There are some latency issues that could be improved."
"The licensing cost should be improved."
"There could be more courses with engineers. I like e-learning, however, having a specialist in a classroom is more comfortable for me."
"DNS Management."
"The solution could work at being less expensive. It costs a lot to use it."
"Technical support is not well developed. While there are good engineers, Cloudflare does not offer hands-on technical support to fix customer problems but rather a self-service model."
"We're facing challenges due to an upgrade in the machine learning model. The problem arises from some users abusing the APIs, resulting in an influx of suspicious traffic. Cloudflare's learning model mistakenly identifies this traffic as human. Consequently, it assigns it a higher trust score, akin to legitimate human traffic, causing complications in our architecture. Previously, such traffic would have been categorized as suspicious, enabling us to apply appropriate blocking rules. However, we encounter difficulties distinguishing between genuine and suspicious traffic with the new categorization. Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor."
"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."
"In the last two years, there has been a certain amount of downtime when using the VDM."
"Integration involving API with other products could be more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Since Akamai is the industry leader, I imagine the solution would be a little more expensive than some other vendors."
"In my opinion, DNS is inexpensive. The pricing depends on how you use it, but overall, it's quite affordable. It typically costs just a fesw cents, and Microsoft even offers ten thousand free hits per month."
"We have an enterprise license agreement with Microsoft. Their pricing is competitive. I would rate it a three and a half out of five."
"The solution payment model is based on how many users use it. This is not an expensive solution, but it can depend on how long we use it. However, if the price was decreased it would be helpful."
"I would describe Azure DNS as a cheaply priced product."
"To use Azure DNS, I need to buy the license meant for Windows Server."
"The price is low and it's a reasonable price for that product."
"The solution itself is free but you need to pay for the Microsoft Azure infrastructure and host your domains in Azure to use it."
"The pricing is expensive."
"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."
"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."
"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
"A free version of the solution is available."
"The price is reasonable."
"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."
"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."
"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."
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Comparison Review

it_user68487 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
5%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise19
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise25
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Akamai Edge DNS?
It is a very stable solution since it has a security feature that allows you to recover zone files if you accidentall...
What needs improvement with Akamai Edge DNS?
For user experience, Akamai Edge DNS should allow notes to be added for each record, as this is something Infoblox su...
What is your primary use case for Akamai Edge DNS?
As a reseller company for Akamai, my typical use case for Akamai Edge DNS is its distribution worldwide, providing DD...
Azure DNS or Amazon Route 53?
Azure DNS is a hosting service of DNS domains. It has excellent operating time and performance, resulting in fast res...
What do you like most about Azure DNS?
The tool is easy to manage and use.
What needs improvement with Azure DNS?
* Add native management routing (geo‑routing, failover, weighted records) directly within Azure DNS zones to reduce d...
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 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.
 

Also Known As

Akamai Fast DNS
No data available
Cloudflare DNS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Otto Group
M-Files
Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare, Amazon Web Services (AWS), BlueCat and others in Managed DNS. Updated: October 2025.
872,008 professionals have used our research since 2012.