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Akamai Edge DNS vs IBM NS1 Connect comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

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
10th
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
IBM NS1 Connect
Ranking in Managed DNS
6th
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
9th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Managed DNS category, the mindshare of Akamai Edge DNS is 2.2%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM NS1 Connect is 2.9%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed DNS Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM NS1 Connect2.9%
Akamai Edge DNS2.2%
Other94.9%
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.
Kidone Morgan - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at PwC
Smart traffic routing has boosted performance and has saved significant time through automation
The best features that IBM NS1 Connect offers include routing based on user verification, endpoint switching based on latency, DNS response time, real-time monitoring, intelligent traffic routing capabilities, API-driven functionality, HTTPS redirects, secondary DNS, and API integrations. It helps to connect for external DNS and HTTPS redirects. The ability to have a diverse secondary DNS server is also key. It has been a solid platform for us and we have not experienced any significant issues. IBM NS1 Connect has positively impacted my organization by providing controlled downtime, reduced downtime, and time saving through automation, as approximately forty to fifty percent of our time is saved through automation and enhanced visibility. The metrics and real-time monitoring are probably the most powerful features. Automation has really saved us time because this tool is able to automate most of the repetitive and time-consuming tasks. We are able to save time because of the automation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 high availability of Akamai Edge DNS is impressive due to their numerous POPs, which help in supporting all attacks, including DDoS counterattacks."
"We can maintain control of the configuration, and it seems to be covering the use case that we need."
"I recommend Akamai Edge DNS because it is distributed globally and prevents DDoS attacks."
"I haven't had any problems with the stability of Akamai Edge DNS in the past five years."
"Managed DNS helped improve our end-user experience, it reduced our latency dramatically, and our users' experience is much better now."
"The solution's stability is absolutely perfect."
"IBM NS1 Connect has a positive impact on my organization, as I believe it improves security, availability, and DDoS attack mitigation because it detects failures and automatically redirects users to healthy resources."
"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."
"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."
"Overall, it has helped to improve our end-user experience."
"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."
"From a maintenance standpoint, mainly in terms of maintenance provisioning and deprovisioning, since we do not really see the internals of the SaaS solution, the reduction would be drastic, and it would be a tenth of the time."
 

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."
"Akamai Edge DNS is expensive, and the pricing is higher compared to Infoblox."
"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."
"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."
"I would love to see improvement in the testing capabilities they provide."
"Pricing can be more transparent, especially when dealing with tight budgets."
"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."
"I believe IBM NS1 Connect can be improved in several ways. The main concern I identified is the cost, which is higher than other solutions despite its uses."
"We would really like them to become a DNS registrar."
"The technical support is slow. You raise a PR, and then it takes several weeks for them to respond."
"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."
 

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

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise13
 

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.
What needs improvement with NS1 Managed DNS?
I believe IBM NS1 Connect can be improved in several ways. The main concern I identified is the cost, which is higher than other solutions despite its uses. Additionally, they could improve their h...
What is your primary use case for NS1 Managed DNS?
My main use case for IBM NS1 Connect is handling DNS traffic and routing traffic. A specific example of how I use IBM NS1 Connect to route traffic is routing the API, the websites' API, and the app...
What advice do you have for others considering NS1 Managed DNS?
Regarding IBM NS1 Connect's AI capabilities, the accuracy and reliability of output involve least privileged API keys, API key rotation, secret management, and monitoring and alerting, with alerts ...
 

Also Known As

Akamai Fast DNS
NS1 Managed DNS, NS1
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Otto Group
Avast Software, Bloomberg L.P., BBC, Carfax, CNBC LLC, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Disney Streaming, Dropbox, EBAY Inc, Gannett Media Corp, Salesforce, Wayfair, Workday
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai Edge DNS vs. IBM NS1 Connect and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,322 professionals have used our research since 2012.