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Akamai Edge DNS vs Cloudflare comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 19, 2025

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
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), WAN Optimization (4th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Managed DNS category, the mindshare of Akamai Edge DNS is 1.4%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cloudflare is 31.5%, 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 (%)
Cloudflare31.5%
Akamai Edge DNS1.4%
Other67.1%
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.
HA
Owner at Hga consulting
Has helped manage client domains with streamlined access control and threat visibility
I don't know what areas could be improved with Cloudflare WAF; Cloudflare is constantly improving and adding features to their feature set. They're doing a good job, and as far as DNS and support for any domains that I create or my clients create, it's mandatory for me to make sure that they have Cloudflare as their DNS provider. The Cloudflare load balancing capability hasn't really helped in enhancing my website's uptime and resiliency because we don't really get that much traffic; it's mostly remote users, and web hosting is done by a web hosting service. It doesn't pay to try to host your own website.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"The web application firewall brought us good security and a view of the accesses/blocks of the entire domain and subdomain that were accessed both by region (country) and IPs."
"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."
"It is a fast and secure DNS."
"The DDoS protection is the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"It's a great product because it's scalable, has great coverage, and is mature with good defenses against DDoS attacks."
"The overall experience with Cloudflare is positive, with a rating of eight out of ten."
"It is a fast and secure DNS."
"The solution offers the flexibility to control configuration rules."
 

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."
"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."
"Akamai Edge DNS is expensive, and the pricing is higher compared to Infoblox."
"Areas like how assessment, discovery, and payload are dealt with and how it all comes into your organization can be considered when trying to make suggestions to Cloudflare for improvements."
"Although I think it's quite good, it doesn't provide me with all the features I would expect to have if I were using Imperva."
"The Cloudflare load balancing capability hasn't really helped in enhancing my website's uptime and resiliency because we don't really get that much traffic; it's mostly remote users, and web hosting is done by a web hosting service."
"The tool needs to improve caching of servers. The product needs to include PFX certificate as well."
"DNS Management."
"The solution could use more analytics on the backend to give us more insights into everything. More reports would be helpful."
"The integration of LLMs on the dashboard is something that is needed in the tool."
"Cloudflare should add more documentation and pricing to the cloud version."
 

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 tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."
"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."
"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."
"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."
"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."
"I give the price a five out of ten."
"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."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
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Comparison Review

it_user68487 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

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

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 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
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: December 2025.
879,899 professionals have used our research since 2012.