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Akamai vs Amazon CloudFront comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 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
Ranking in CDN
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Amazon CloudFront
Ranking in CDN
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Akamai is 17.7%, up from 15.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon CloudFront is 7.9%, down from 11.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CDN
 

Featured Reviews

Aryan Singh1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers great enterprise support, ideal for solutions requiring high scalability and seamless integration with AWS infrastructure
For Akamai, it is definitely one of the best tools out there. However, there are challenges with how their approach is designed for large enterprises. While it's great for solutions with high scalability, like global e-commerce, it's not really built for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). It has too many options and can be complex for SMBs to utilize. That's the biggest challenge we faced when migrating to Akamai from other solutions, like Cloudflare. It can be difficult to migrate between platforms. Due to its great features but high activation thresholds. So, while it's a powerful tool, it has limitations for some implementations. It was difficult to migrate from and to Akamai. It is challenging when we are building a website.
Parth Buch - PeerSpot reviewer
Seamlessly manages security and dynamic content hosting in diverse applications
Hosting static content or with engineering dynamic content is beneficial. CloudFront provides a common access point, manages routing to different methods, and serves as an access point plus API routing. With AWS, maintenance is not required as it's a service offered by AWS which maintains itself. Security concerns are manageable through AWS's security mechanisms, with additional security enhancement possible through options like WAF and NACL.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very sustainable and flexible."
"The worldwide reach of the Akamai CDN is one of the key values of this CDN and the agreements worldwide that they keep running."
"Akamai provides low-latency throughput."
"If an attacker conducts an attack, we can check what query he is running and whether he wants to see our password or any other files."
"It's a scalable and reliable solution."
"With 300 servers deployed worldwide, it's highly scalable and is the best web application firewall on the market."
"We can see how much traffic can be downloaded on the portal."
"Akamai is leveraged by many top-level businesses, ensuring reliability and support in case of outages or issues."
"The UI and the functionality in AWS for CloudFront is much better as compared to Azure and GCP."
"The beneficial feature for the entire AWS community is the presence of edge location servers. These servers are strategically located in multiple locations, allowing efficient content delivery from the nearest server."
"The AWS environment was very helpful in terms of integration."
"The solution has good security features."
"The most beneficial feature is capturing the static data, which is crucial for our operations."
"The distribution aspect of CloudFront and its ability to reduce latency are most beneficial."
"Feature-wise, I like the solution's signed URL because it provides security for me."
"The support team is knowledgeable."
 

Cons

"It would be better if we could be notified about specific attacks."
"I'd like to see more Web 3.0 and IoT solutions."
"I would like to see improvements in the security aspect. The web application firewall needs to be enhanced and offers more customization options."
"Akamai's configuration part is an area of concern where improvements are required to make the process easy."
"Sometimes a little hard to navigate around the user console."
"Local connectivity would be great linked to our own telecom/Cablevision CDN."
"One area for improvement with Akamai could be pricing."
"Akamai should improve its integrations."
"The product could support any network load balancer. At present, we can use only Amazon’s load balancer application."
"With a mixed stack, things become a problem. With GCP and Azure, the DNS setup gets tricky when using CloudFront."
"Amazon CloudFront seems to have too many unnecessary products, which makes it cluttered."
"There are some solutions needed for integration that are not free."
"A lot of caching features must be added to the solution."
"AWS is redesigning its user interface and user experience for CloudFront, and there is room for improvement in certificate management."
"The tool must provide regional control."
"There is room for improvement in customer service and support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Akamai could be less expensive."
"The pricing of Akamai is moderate, in my opinion. My company makes yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to Akamai. There are no additional costs besides the licensing costs for the solution."
"Quite high in price, but equivalent to other enterprise products on the market"
"The solution's pricing is based on bandwidth."
"Akamai is an expensive tool. Moreover, we have a pay-as-you-go model for additional features."
"From the resource component, it's very costly, and Akamai's charges are also high. So, any organization with a high-tech budget can definitely afford it, but companies with 10-15% of their revenue as a technical budget probably won't be able to. That's where they have a lot of room for improvement if they want to onboard those early users."
"The solution can be one of the more expensive options, reflecting their established market position."
"This is a very expensive solution but it works well."
"We do not have many options to optimize costs."
"The policies and prices keep on changing frequently with AWS solutions"
"The tool is affordable."
"Amazon's pricing varies depending on the data transfer."
"For CloudFront, I'm quite satisfied with the pricing. Initially, it doesn't require many resources for this specific solution."
"I used to work with AWS and Azure, and we provided cost comparisons for customers to help them choose the right services. Azure tends to be more user-friendly and easier to understand, while AWS may take more time."
"Compared to competitors like Azure and Google, we find AWS pricing to be advantageous."
"The product has a mid-range pricing."
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Comparison Review

it_user69348 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 17, 2013
Akamai vs. CloudFlare – Simple Stats
In the world of CDNs Akamai is the incumbent 500 pound gorilla, no question. They have a HUGE global presence, super solid technology and networks, and have the most experience with large enterprise clients. However, now there other strong players in the CDN market. One of the most…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Educational Organization
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Akamai?
The most valuable feature in managing web traffic has been the ability to handle vertical scaling effectively.
What needs improvement with Akamai?
Akamai could improve by having a more robust and responsive support team. While the support is not bad, there is room for enhancement, particularly in reducing the delay for support.
What is your primary use case for Akamai?
We use Akamai ( /products/akamai-reviews ) as our CDN ( /categories/cdn ) to advertise prefixes and download traffic. It provides a better experience, especially for streaming and gaming. In our ne...
How do I choose between AWS Global Accelerator and Amazon CloudFront?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon’s Web Service Global Accelerator or Amazon CloudFront global content delivery network was the better fit for us. We decided to go w...
What do you like most about Amazon CloudFront?
The solution has good security features.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon CloudFront?
I find Amazon's pricing good, rating it eight out of ten and considering it affordable and rightly placed, not expensive.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Bank of America, Capital One, Cisco, Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines, Disney, Ebay, Facebook, Google, Home Depot, HP, IBM, Intel, JPMorgan Chase, LinkedIn, McDonald's, Microsoft, Netflix, Nike, Oracle, PayPal, Pinterest, Qualcomm, Rakuten, SAP, Spotify, Tesla, Toyota, Visa, Walmart, WeWork
Unilever, Spotify, Pinterest, MLB Advanced Media, Foursquare, PBS, Airbnb, Netflix, WIX, Comcast, Automobili Lamborghini, Rovio, Discovery Communications
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai vs. Amazon CloudFront and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.