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Akamai vs Cloudflare vs Uplynk 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 July 2025, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Akamai is 17.3%, up from 15.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cloudflare is 22.1%, up from 21.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Uplynk is 4.3%, up from 2.7% 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.
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.
Eduardo Oviedo-Blanco - PeerSpot reviewer
A CDN solution to enhance loading times and streamline navigation
When one of the primary nodes spanning from North to South America, from the northern US to the southern US, became operational, it had a big impact. It can be challenging to explain its advantages to clients. The technical nature of the marketing material is too technical for stakeholders. Integrating the solution was straightforward, requiring no extra effort. Edgio Global CDN operates, resembling familiar cloud services but offering elevated functionality. Unlike platforms such as Google Cloud Platform or RIN geared towards development teams, Edgio emphasizes client-facing services that are integral to our operations. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Akamai has a very established network of PoPs globally."
"We can see how much traffic can be downloaded on the portal."
"Akamai's scalability is good."
"The solution's technical support is very prompt and good."
"Akamai is leveraged by many top-level businesses, ensuring reliability and support in case of outages or issues."
"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."
"The solution's technical support is very good...The installation phase of Akamai was easy."
"The tool is user-friendly."
"Even when there is a high load on our servers, Cloudflare is able to cache the data and serve it to users, ensuring they can still access the website."
"Its ease of integration with Office 365 and the fact that it's a good product compared to what I had before"
"Centralized, full-featured DNS."
"The DDoS protection is the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"The most valuable feature is its usability."
"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."
"It is a fast and secure DNS."
"It's super easy to use and integrate with."
"The product is easy to use and easy to implement."
"The customer support and service responsiveness were excellent."
"The tool's most valuable feature is the Uplynk platform for streaming purposes."
"The Rules Engine V4 is the most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"Costing-wise and integration with other tools need improvement, especially API security."
"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 fact that it is an expensive product is its only shortcoming."
"Local connectivity would be great linked to our own telecom/Cablevision CDN."
"Caching strategy is an area with certain shortcomings in the solution where improvements are required."
"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."
"When we open tickets, we have a delay in response times."
"The product's scalability can be improved since certain shortcomings regarding the security part of the solution currently exist."
"Latencies are always a problem."
"Eventually, things go sideways and require fixes when it would have been easier to prevent the issue initially."
"The analytics, basically the dashboard, doesn't have much to it."
"It would be beneficial for us if Cloudflare could offer a scrubbing solution. This would involve taking a snapshot of my website and keeping it live during a DDoS attack, ensuring uninterrupted service for our users. DDoS attacks are typically short in duration, and having Cloudflare maintain the site's availability from its secure network would enhance the overall user experience. I would appreciate it if Cloudflare could consider implementing this feature. Many organizations already utilize similar capabilities in their CDN platforms, where a static snapshot of the web page is displayed during DDoS attacks. In terms of features, Cloudflare needs to enhance its resilience and stay more focused on adopting new technologies. For instance, solutions like F5 XC Box, Access Solution, and Distributed Cloud Solution have impressive features, and Cloudflare should strive to match and exceed those capabilities. There's a need for improvement in areas like AI-based DDoS attacks and Layer 7 WAF features. Cloudflare should prioritize enhancements in areas such as behavioral DDoS and protection against SQL injection attacks, considering the prevalent trend of public exposure to the internet for business reasons. Overall, Cloudflare needs to invest more in advancing its feature set."
"Cloudflare could offer a better view or maybe dashboards of the main resources used in the client."
"We have noticed multiple instances where Cloudflare falsely indicates that our servers are down, even when there is no actual load on them. This makes it challenging for us to identify the exact issue."
"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."
"The tool needs to improve caching of servers. The product needs to include PFX certificate as well."
"In the next release, I would like to see more global endpoints for their CDN and a lower price."
"The web interface of the Verizon Edgecast portal is very old. It's not user-friendly, slow, and it is missing some valuable features like the ability to make bulk changes."
"The tool needs to resolve its lack of innovation."
"We could not create more than 15 custom rules."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is a very expensive solution but it works well."
"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."
"Quite high in price, but equivalent to other enterprise products on the market"
"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 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 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."
"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"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."
"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."
"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."
"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"The pricing for the service is reasonable, neither excessively cheap nor prohibitively expensive. It aligns well with the value of their solution."
"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."
"Be careful about the options because to have all the features can be very expensive."
"When I modeled it out, we are spending somewhere between $600 to $800 a month with Verizon EdgeCast."
"The product is cheaper compared to other solutions."
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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%
Educational Organization
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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....
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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Edgio Global CDN?
The pricing was initially very expensive. However, after improving and restructuring the application, it became more ...
What needs improvement with Edgio Global CDN?
Regarding improvements, I focused on testing and compatibility to ensure reliability across various mobile devices. B...
What is your primary use case for Edgio Global CDN?
I usually use the product for mobile development. At my last company, OmniTier, I worked as a senior principal softwa...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Cloudflare DNS
Edgio, Limelight Content Delivery, Limelight Orchestrate Delivery, Limelight Origin Storage, Global CDN, Verizon EdgeCast
 

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
Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.
TD Ameritrade, Plus500, Solvay Bank, Yahoo, Deckers Brands, and Coach
Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in CDN. Updated: June 2025.
861,170 professionals have used our research since 2012.