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Akamai vs Amazon CloudFront 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 August 2025, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Akamai is 17.3%, up from 15.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon CloudFront is 7.8%, down from 10.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cloudflare is 22.2%, up from 21.9% 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.
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 most valuable feature in managing web traffic has been the ability to handle vertical scaling effectively."
"The solution's technical support is very prompt and good."
"Akamai provides low-latency throughput."
"With 300 servers deployed worldwide, it's highly scalable and is the best web application firewall on the market."
"As of now, the best thing about Akamai is WAF, and though CDN is a good feature, it comes in second place when compared to WAF. I am very impressed with the WAF offered by Akamai."
"We have received excellent support from their team; I have not worked with any other applications where they have delivered professional services as good as them."
"It's a scalable and reliable solution."
"This solution can be used for web , video and media caching and streaming."
"Amazon CloudFront is a stable solution."
"The product's most valuable feature is its ability to deliver content to users nearby."
"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."
"Amazon CloudFront provides valuable security by ensuring secure file access when accessing files from S3."
"Feature-wise, I like the solution's signed URL because it provides security for me."
"Hosting static content or with engineering dynamic content is beneficial."
"It is an expensive product with valuable features."
"The speed and usability of the solution are valuable."
"The solution provides good load balancing and protection against DDoS attacks."
"Many websites require an SSL certificate because they sell stuff and want SSL. Cloudflare comes with an SSL certificate built in. It's automatic. You sign yourself up for Cloudflare, and an SSL certificate automatically protects your website. You don't necessarily need a certificate if you have a connection between your website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host."
"When using services like Heroku, Cloudflare is very useful for CNAME flattening. I also use it for their end-to-end SSL with TLS authentication on nginx for securing servers."
"Its ease of integration with Office 365 and the fact that it's a good product compared to what I had before"
"What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering, so it's a valuable tool."
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is the GUI. You are able to control the solution very well through the interface. There is a lot of functionality that is embedded in the service."
"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."
 

Cons

"The product's scalability can be improved since certain shortcomings regarding the security part of the solution currently exist."
"Sometimes a little hard to navigate around the user console."
"Their support is very slow. If you file a support ticket, it takes a long time before it gets resolved."
"When we open tickets, we have a delay in response times."
"It would be better if we could be notified about specific attacks."
"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."
"Caching strategy is an area with certain shortcomings in the solution where improvements are required."
"Akamai could improve by providing its own cloud services. We have to use third-party cloud services at this time, such as Amazon AWS. The offering becomes a lot easier for an SMB if everything was in one single platform to be used for the services."
"The product could support any network load balancer. At present, we can use only Amazon’s load balancer application."
"They could be expanding the number of locations available. It will help users easily access content."
"During the setup phase, there were some hiccups in terms of security, the user role, and the permissions."
"Amazon CloudFront could improve by making it easier to integrate with components from different cloud providers."
"Sometimes, the server goes down automatically."
"The user interface could be improved."
"Amazon CloudFront's setup is a bit difficult, and we would love it if they made it easier."
"A lot of caching features must be added to the solution."
"The reporting can definitely be improved to offer a lot more explanation on something that may have happened or has actually happened."
"It would be helpful if the solution could continue evolving to compete with the other solutions on the market."
"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."
"In the last two years, there has been a certain amount of downtime when using the VDM."
"Cloudflare could be improved by introducing a mid-tier pricing option."
"The analytics, basically the dashboard, doesn't have much to it."
"An integrated SSO feature would be useful for Cloudflare DNS."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Quite high in price, but equivalent to other enterprise products on the market"
"Price-wise, I find Akamai's pricing model's inclination to be more towards the expensive side of the spectrum, though I can't say that it is a very expensive product."
"The price of Akamai could be less expensive."
"The price of the solution depends upon its usage."
"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."
"Akamai is an expensive tool. Moreover, we have a pay-as-you-go model for additional features."
"The solution's pricing is based on bandwidth."
"It is an expensive product. The licensing costs for the solution are based on the usage. If we need premium support, we need to buy it from Akamai."
"The policies and prices keep on changing frequently with AWS solutions"
"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."
"The product has a mid-range pricing."
"Compared to competitors like Azure and Google, we find AWS pricing to be advantageous."
"I rate Amazon CloudFront's pricing a five out of ten."
"The solution’s price is reasonable."
"For CloudFront, I'm quite satisfied with the pricing. Initially, it doesn't require many resources for this specific solution."
"We do not have many options to optimize costs."
"The price is reasonable."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"The product's pricing is cheap."
"We are using the free tier of the solution."
"We are using the free version."
"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
"A free version of the solution is available."
"I give the price a five out of ten."
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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
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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...
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....
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 CloudFro...
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 expens...
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

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Cloudflare DNS
 

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
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, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in CDN. Updated: August 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.