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Akamai Edge DNS vs Cloudflare comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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

Akamai Edge DNS
Ranking in Managed DNS
9th
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cloudflare
Ranking in Managed DNS
1st
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
80
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), WAN Optimization (5th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (8th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (2nd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Managed DNS category, the mindshare of Akamai Edge DNS is 2.5%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cloudflare is 23.1%, down from 33.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed DNS Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cloudflare23.1%
Akamai Edge DNS2.5%
Other74.4%
Managed DNS
 

Featured Reviews

YA
Head of Service Delivery at onme
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.
M.A. Faisal - PeerSpot reviewer
General Manager at bKash Limited
Advanced protection has secured critical web workloads and provides clear traffic visibility
From a security perspective, there remains a security loophole, as some browsers in the market can bypass the Turnstile solution, which requires approximately 40 seconds to do so. From a performance perspective, this is acceptable. We also tried Google reCAPTCHA, and that can also be bypassed. From a security perspective, I would say neither solution is completely secured. Regarding uptime, we have faced a couple of incidents due to Cloudflare in recent years, so I cannot say we receive 100% uptime for our region. We sometimes face challenges, including downtime and other issues. As a result, we are not receiving 100% uptime from Cloudflare's solution. Since most of our customers are in this region, we need alternatives. We need something more competitive than Cloudflare. Unfortunately, in Bangladesh, Cloudflare has three points of presence already, and we cannot find any other solution provider in Bangladesh as an alternative, which presents another challenge. Competitor solutions have more attack signatures, which ensure better security compared to Cloudflare's predefined configurations. Customers do not have options to modify any configuration parameters in Cloudflare, whereas other competitor solutions, such as F5 Distributed Cloud, allow customers to tune configurations according to their requirements. Cloudflare could improve in this area. Additionally, regarding visibility, Cloudflare has static visibility, but they could adopt dynamic graph features for their customers.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I recommend Akamai Edge DNS because it is distributed globally and prevents DDoS attacks."
"It is a very stable solution since it has a security feature that allows you to recover zone files if you accidentally delete them."
"I haven't had any problems with the stability of Akamai Edge DNS in the past five years."
"We can maintain control of the configuration, and it seems to be covering the use case that we need."
"The high availability of Akamai Edge DNS is impressive due to their numerous POPs, which help in supporting all attacks, including DDoS counterattacks."
"Easier http to https redirect using page rules"
"There are key things that are used for our enterprise customers, such as Lambda and DNS."
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is its global reach and it is always evolving."
"The setup and configuration is also easy to perform and their support is excellent."
"In terms of numbers, our domain DNS availability was previously around ninety-nine percent from our existing vendor, and now our domain DNS availability is one hundred percent with Cloudflare."
"The features of Cloudflare were found to be more beneficial and led to the decision to utilize it over other options."
"The DDoS protection is the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"Generally, I am satisfied with this product."
 

Cons

"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."
"CNAME flattening is a feature that Akamai does not support."
"The solution has a fairly complex setup with our cloud vendors, including Microsoft, Salesforce, and Oracle."
"Akamai Edge DNS is expensive, and the pricing is higher compared to Infoblox."
"We have noticed multiple instances where Cloudflare falsely indicates that our servers are down, even when there is no actual load on them. This makes it challenging for us to identify the exact issue."
"I think they have failed with their technical support."
"However, what I still fail to understand is that why aren't they offering domains themselves."
"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."
"For the services I am using, it is a bit expensive."
"At the end, it is worth than giving your house keys to the NSA."
"We had to do a lot of digging and back-and-forth with technical support for specific use cases, and it might be helpful to have more screencasts or screenshots for common situations."
"Yes, 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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Since Akamai is the industry leader, I imagine the solution would be a little more expensive than some other vendors."
"The price is reasonable."
"We are using the free tier of the solution."
"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."
"I give the price a five out of ten."
"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."
"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."
"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 solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
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920,939 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business47
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise26
 

Questions from the Community

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 supports. Without notes, managing changes in DNS records can be difficult, especia...
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 DDoS attack prevention which is crucial in current times.
What advice do you have for others considering Akamai Edge DNS?
I recommend Akamai Edge DNS and rate the overall solution a ten out of ten. Akamai Edge DNS should improve its AI more to enhance the product's capabilities.
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 ...
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 ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare DNS?
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Cloudflare are a bit on the higher side overall.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Akamai Fast DNS
Cloudflare DNS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Otto Group
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 Akamai Edge DNS vs. Cloudflare and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,939 professionals have used our research since 2012.