Akamai vs Cloudflare vs Fastly comparison

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Akamai Logo
6,880 views|6,226 comparisons
100% willing to recommend
Cloudflare Logo
10,179 views|8,667 comparisons
96% willing to recommend
Fastly Logo
1,362 views|1,153 comparisons
100% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Akamai, Cloudflare, and Fastly based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare, Microsoft, Akamai and others in CDN.
To learn more, read our detailed CDN Report (Updated: April 2024).
768,886 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"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.""Akamai has a very established network of PoPs globally.""Akamai's scalability is good.""The solution's most valuable feature is that it has been quite helpful in our company, especially when it comes to applications needing updates frequently.""This solution can be used for web , video and media caching and streaming.""The worldwide reach of the Akamai CDN is one of the key values of this CDN and the agreements worldwide that they keep running.""It's a scalable and reliable solution.""The solution is very sustainable and flexible."

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"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is that it has a free version. They give us the free version with the anti-DDoS features and also the load balancing solution.""Easier http to https redirect using page rules""Cloudflare has many features.""Smaller businesses have seen great ROI due to the low investment and strong performance.""We're using dynamic components to build flexible pages to create and manage Git merge requests for code and reviews.""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.""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.""Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications."

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"Its initial setup process is straightforward.""Fastly uses configuration versioning, where you can deploy a new version in less than one minute.""Support is good; the product works as advertised. We have a Slack connection with them. So we can basically ask for help, live, engage, and ring when they respond. Very quickly.""The product helps our organization to access sites located in different regions quickly.""Compute@Edge features are valuable to me.""Rate limiting is a good feature that protects from volumetric attacks."

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Cons
"I'd like to see more Web 3.0 and IoT solutions.""The solution could offer more integrations.""Akamai's configuration part is an area of concern where improvements are required to make the process easy.""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.""Akamai should improve its integrations.""I'd like to see improvements in log files and data visualizations within the interface.""Their support is very slow. If you file a support ticket, it takes a long time before it gets resolved.""I would like to see improvements in the security aspect. The web application firewall needs to be enhanced and offers more customization options."

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"The product support needs to be accessible from more places, a wider area of coverage.""The solution could work at being less expensive. It costs a lot to use it.""Cloudflare's console should be made more user-friendly.""I would like Cloudflare to offer a dedicated account manager for large enterprise clients like us.""For the free and Pro plans, Cloudflare could use a simple bot to provide information to users. This would improve support, especially for less advanced users who utilize the free components.""I think the APIs are a little bit hard for us to work with. The APIs could be more open so that we could integrate better with our SolarWinds or our monitoring solution.""One area of improvement is in the Access Rules. Hypothetically, if we wanted to block or challenge traffic outside of the United States, the only way to currently do that (as far as I know) is to enter every single country outside of the United States. That could be a labor intensive job. A solution could be to enable users to create a rule where traffic is only allowed within a certain country.""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."

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"Fastly's customer service area needs improvement.""Stronger analytics would be helpful, like showing configurations that haven't served a certain amount of traffic in a while. With many properties, things can get lost track of - duplicates or unused configurations not properly decommissioned.""The solution's pricing could be better.""The product should provide improved bot detection and management.""It is missing a "staging" platform to deploy a test configuration with all of the real settings, which would allow us to properly test before putting it into production.""Support is not that great."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "This is a very expensive solution but it works well."
  • "Quite high in price, but equivalent to other enterprise products on the market"
  • "The price of Akamai could be less expensive."
  • "The solution's pricing is based on bandwidth."
  • "The solution can be one of the more expensive options, reflecting their established market position."
  • "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 price of the solution depends upon its usage."
  • More Akamai Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."
  • "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."
  • "There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
  • "The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."
  • "We don't have any issues with the price."
  • "The price is reasonable."
  • "The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
  • "It's a premium model. You can start at zero and work your way up to the enterprise model, which has a very high pricing level."
  • More Cloudflare Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "In my opinion, Fastly is priced competitively."
  • "It is an expensive solution."
  • "The solution is cheaper than other products in the market."
  • "I've generally found Fastly to be very competitive in pricing, especially around Compute@Edge."
  • "Fastly is less expensive than one of its competitors."
  • "The pricing has been very competitive."
  • More Fastly Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Comparison Review
    Anonymous User
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The most valuable feature in managing web traffic has been the ability to handle vertical scaling effectively.
    Top Answer:One area for improvement with Akamai could be pricing.
    Top Answer:Akamai is useful for web content delivery in business because it helps improve speed, reliability, and security. Caching… more »
    Top Answer:Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GRE… more »
    Top Answer:Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.
    Top Answer:Support is good; the product works as advertised. We have a Slack connection with them. So we can basically ask for… more »
    Top Answer:Stronger analytics would be helpful like showing configurations that haven't served a certain amount of traffic in a… more »
    Ranking
    3rd
    out of 34 in CDN
    Views
    6,880
    Comparisons
    6,226
    Reviews
    12
    Average Words per Review
    484
    Rating
    8.9
    1st
    out of 34 in CDN
    Views
    10,179
    Comparisons
    8,667
    Reviews
    16
    Average Words per Review
    515
    Rating
    8.3
    7th
    out of 34 in CDN
    Views
    1,362
    Comparisons
    1,153
    Reviews
    5
    Average Words per Review
    591
    Rating
    8.6
    Comparisons
    Azure Front Door logo
    Compared 22% of the time.
    Imperva DDoS logo
    Compared 14% of the time.
    Amazon CloudFront logo
    Compared 8% of the time.
    AWS Global Accelerator logo
    Compared 4% of the time.
    Verizon EdgeCast logo
    Compared 3% of the time.
    AWS WAF logo
    Compared 13% of the time.
    Edgio Global CDN logo
    Compared 10% of the time.
    Amazon CloudFront logo
    Compared 8% of the time.
    Imperva DDoS logo
    Compared 6% of the time.
    F5 Advanced WAF logo
    Compared 6% of the time.
    Learn More
    Overview

    Akamai is a powerful solution that aims to enhance the performance and reliability of websites and applications. With features like excellent performance, robust security measures, and efficient content delivery, it optimizes user experience. It also offers bandwidth optimization, caching, online asset security, and protection against DDoS attacks. Users value its wide network coverage and reliable customer support.

    Cloudflare is a highly-regarded Content Delivery Network (CDN) and a Distribution Denial of Service (DDoS) protection solution. The robust global cloud platform that is Cloudflare ensures users are able to connect to the internet quickly, securely, and reliably. Cloudflare is one of the world's largest networks in the marketplace today. Using Cloudflare, businesses, educational entities, NGOs, vloggers, bloggers, and anyone else with an internet presence can use the solution and experience more secure, faster websites and applications.

    Currently, there are millions of internet locations on Cloudflare, and the Cloudflare network continues to grow every day by the thousands. The solution is able to fulfill the requests for millions of websites seamlessly and serves on average 45 million HTTP requests per second.

    Cloudflare has safe, secure data centers in close to 300 cities worldwide to ensure every client request is filled as quickly as possible. It is Cloudflare’s edge network that makes this possible by keeping content and other services as close to each client as possible, so the information requests are always only seconds away.

    Many organizations that work in democracy, civil society, human rights, or the arts are able to access Cloudflare highest levels of protection for free via Project Galileo. Additionally, official election websites can be secured from hacking and fraud through Cloudflare’s Project Athenian, also at no additional cost.

    Cloudflare can also help organizations of all sizes develop a robust zero-trust strategy to ensure the highest levels of productivity and profitability. Employees, stakeholders, and end-users have a greater level of satisfaction and overall improved user experience, which can, in turn, result in higher revenues and overall ROI. Zero-trust and BYOD ( bring your own device) access ensure end-users and employees always have the best resources and technology available to them at all times.



    Cloudflare Benefits

    Cloudflare has many benefits. Some of its most valuable benefits include:

    • Faster load times
    • Robust DNS security
    • Intuitive cloud Web Application Firewall (WAF)
    • Free universal SSL
    • Image Enhancement
    • Automatic Browser Caching
    • Next-generation cloud load balancer
    • Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
    • Rate Limiting
    • Minification
    • Zero-trust capabilities 
    • Cost-effective
    • Reduced carbon footprint

    Reviews from Real Users

    “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. If you have a connection between your website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host, you don't necessarily need a certificate.”  Spencer M., Owner at Tech Exchange

    “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.” Daniel P., Network engineer at Ufinet

    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.” A PeerSpot user who is a Competence Center Manager at a tech services company. 

    Fastly helps the world’s most popular digital businesses keep pace with their customer expectations by delivering fast, secure, and scalable online experiences. Businesses trust Fastly’s edge cloud platform to accelerate the pace of technical innovation, mitigate evolving threats, and scale on demand.
    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.
    Twitter, Airbnb, Alaska Airlines, Pinterest, Vimeo, The Guardian, The New York Times, Ticketmaster, The Drupal Association, Opera, about.com, imgur, Etsy, Foursquare, GitHub, New Relic, shopify, Shazam, Firebase
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider38%
    Media Company13%
    Leisure / Travel Company13%
    Consumer Goods Company13%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization27%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm23%
    Comms Service Provider23%
    Energy/Utilities Company9%
    Marketing Services Firm9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization38%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Comms Service Provider5%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company19%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Retailer8%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business38%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise43%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise34%
    Large Enterprise52%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business64%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise23%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise46%
    Large Enterprise36%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business71%
    Large Enterprise29%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise57%
    Buyer's Guide
    CDN
    April 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare, Microsoft, Akamai and others in CDN. Updated: April 2024.
    768,886 professionals have used our research since 2012.