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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 October 2025, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Akamai is 16.4%, up from 14.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon CloudFront is 7.0%, down from 9.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cloudflare is 21.1%, down from 21.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CDN Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cloudflare21.1%
Amazon CloudFront7.0%
Akamai16.4%
Other55.5%
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 initial setup is simple, especially for SaaS solutions."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of Akamai is its ease of use and simple integration. Additionally, the solution has new aspects added to it regularly."
"The worldwide reach of the Akamai CDN is one of the key values of this CDN and the agreements worldwide that they keep running."
"The most valuable feature in managing web traffic has been the ability to handle vertical scaling effectively."
"The solution is very sustainable and flexible."
"The product is very well interconnected with other Amazon services."
"If you're using AWS entirely, it's smooth sailing."
"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 tool is highly available and reliable. It helps to access server applications easily. Integrating Amazon CloudFront with other AWS services was very easy, I would rate it eight out of ten."
"The most beneficial feature is capturing the static data, which is crucial for our operations."
"The most beneficial aspect of Amazon CloudFront is its capacity to automatically arrange resources depending on user needs, eliminating the need for on-premises management."
"It has built-in DDoS protection, which protects against DDoS attacks."
"Edge configuration and availability are vital features for easy content drop-off requests"
"The overall experience with Cloudflare is positive, with a rating of eight out of ten."
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is its global reach and it is always evolving."
"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."
"There are key things that are used for our enterprise customers, such as Lambda and DNS."
"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."
"Easier http to https redirect using page rules"
"The solution is stable, and the DNS servers are simple to use."
"Cloudflare has many features."
 

Cons

"Sometimes a little hard to navigate around the user console."
"The product's scalability can be improved since certain shortcomings regarding the security part of the solution currently exist."
"It would be better if we could be notified about specific attacks."
"Akamai should improve its integrations."
"One area for improvement with Akamai could be pricing."
"I would like to see improvements in the security aspect. The web application firewall needs to be enhanced and offers more customization options."
"Caching strategy is an area with certain shortcomings in the solution where improvements are required."
"Akamai's configuration part is an area of concern where improvements are required to make the process easy."
"The solution can benefit from expanding its data center and server locations to multiple places for smoother content delivery with even lower latency. The latency we experience is sufficient for our needs, and we are doing well. However, if they expand their locations in the future, it could be a positive factor. Its competitors have multiple data and server locations."
"The product could support any network load balancer. At present, we can use only Amazon’s load balancer application."
"The product should be more intuitive."
"Amazon CloudFront can improve by accurately determining the latency of a non-defined URL that the solution encounters."
"I would like to see an increase in distribution regions in Africa. There are currently only a few regions available."
"There is room for improvement in customer service and support."
"There are some solutions needed for integration that are not free."
"Improvements are needed as per customer requirements."
"Cloudflare doesn't have a reverse lookup. We can only do a DNS lookup to get the IP address from the hostname. It doesn't work if you want to look up the hostname from an IPA address."
"Cloudflare's free plan is limited to 5,000 records for their free plan. They should increase that. For example, if I create a domain called abc.com and a subdomain called a.abc.com, my record count will be two. I can make a maximum of 5,000 subdomains. However, if we use our own DNS hosted on another provider, there is no limit. Their free plan also lacks name server customization."
"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."
"It should confirm audit findings of the assigned area with auditees to ensure that the audit conclusions are based on an accurate understanding of the issues."
"An integrated SSO feature would be useful for Cloudflare DNS."
"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."
"They lack a good way to manage DNS as a company, since everything is relegated to single account logins until you get to the higher levels. They have come out with a paid feature to remedy this, but I have not had a chance to fully review it yet to know if it fixes the access problem."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Quite high in price, but equivalent to other enterprise products on the market"
"The price of Akamai could be less expensive."
"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."
"Akamai is an expensive tool. Moreover, we have a pay-as-you-go model for additional features."
"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 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."
"The solution can be one of the more expensive options, reflecting their established market position."
"The price of the solution depends upon its usage."
"Its price is really on the high side. It should be cheaper in general."
"For CloudFront, I'm quite satisfied with the pricing. Initially, it doesn't require many resources for this specific solution."
"The policies and prices keep on changing frequently with AWS solutions"
"The solution’s price is reasonable."
"Amazon CloudFront costs less than third-party services."
"Compared to competitors like Azure and Google, we find AWS pricing to be advantageous."
"The tool is affordable."
"The product has a mid-range pricing."
"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."
"In terms of licensing costs, we don't pay for licensing for Cloudflare. We only establish communication, then for peering, Cloudflare takes care of the cross-connection in different data centers."
"I give the price a five out of ten."
"The price is reasonable."
"The product's pricing is cheap."
"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."
"A free version of the solution is available."
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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
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise25
 

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?
Other solutions are probably easier to set up, but you have more capability in Akamai. It would be beneficial if they...
What is your primary use case for Akamai?
We are using many of the solutions from Akamai, with the WAF in front of it and distribution to multiple targets wher...
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.
 

Also Known As

No data available
No data available
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: September 2025.
869,095 professionals have used our research since 2012.