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Akamai vs Cloudflare vs IBM Cloud Video 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 September 2025, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Akamai is 16.3%, up from 14.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cloudflare is 21.3%, up from 21.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Cloud Video is 0.2%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CDN Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cloudflare21.3%
Akamai16.3%
IBM Cloud Video0.2%
Other62.199999999999996%
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.
RL
Great user interface and easy to implement
I like the corporate looking user interface for the audience and very straight forward log-in process too. The user interface of other solutions such as GoToWebinar can be confusing for a less tech-savvy audience. IBM has thoroughly thought through everything and the flexibility to integrate the API to expand the registration gateway allows us to have an extra layer of security. Furthermore, the brand IBM is reputable in the market for its data and network security.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We can see how much traffic can be downloaded on the portal."
"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 provides low-latency throughput."
"The initial setup is simple, especially for SaaS solutions."
"All the policies of the CDNs are very beneficial."
"The most valuable feature of Akamai is its ease of use and simple integration. Additionally, the solution has new aspects added to it regularly."
"It gives a seamless view of how your infrastructure is, from an attack perspective, from a threat perspective, how your assets are behaving; it gives a very comprehensive view."
"Akamai is leveraged by many top-level businesses, ensuring reliability and support in case of outages or issues."
"The UI is good."
"The features of Cloudflare were found to be more beneficial and led to the decision to utilize it over other options."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is external DNS. It is also very secure. They have their own main server and once you configure it, the product takes care of everything. There are no issues in resolving IPs and low latency is also present."
"Easier http to https redirect using page rules"
"It's a great product because it's scalable, has great coverage, and is mature with good defenses against DDoS attacks."
"It's very user-friendly."
"It is a fast and secure DNS."
"Smaller businesses have seen great ROI due to the low investment and strong performance."
"I like the user interface. There aren't too many buttons that the audience will have to fiddle with."
 

Cons

"The solution could offer more integrations."
"When we open tickets, we have a delay in response times."
"After three or four months from this perspective, I don’t know all the features on the platform yet, so I am still learning about it."
"The product's scalability can be improved since certain shortcomings regarding the security part of the solution currently exist."
"Local connectivity would be great linked to our own telecom/Cablevision CDN."
"One area for improvement with Akamai could be pricing."
"I'd like to see improvements in log files and data visualizations within the interface."
"Sometimes a little hard to navigate around the user console."
"The solution could work at being less expensive. It costs a lot to use it."
"There might be helpful if there was some web application firewall feature."
"It should be easier to collect the logs with companies like Sumo. However, based on my discussions with the salespeople, I understand that's how they make their money. With the enterprise product, they want people doing those kinds of enterprise features to do the logging. They want them to pay a lot of money, and that's where I have an issue with them. That should be a default. You should be able to get the log no matter what. The logging should be universal."
"Technical support is lacking."
"If they improve on the placement of their data centers, it would be better. I'm living in a remote area. I would like to connect to them without any kind of lag."
"We are a product integrator and reseller, and we would like to have a better partner relationship, similar to a channel sales relationship. Sometimes we are on our own or get diverted by Cloudflare because they have direct sales, which competes with us and makes it difficult to build a relationship with this company since we want to be an MSP or a managed service provider for the solution."
"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."
"The product support needs to be accessible from more places, a wider area of coverage."
"They should improve the registration gateway. Currently, you can't do a pre-event registration that's straightforward. You have to do an API to integrate. It would be a lot easier if they had that."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 solution's pricing is based on bandwidth."
"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 price of the solution depends upon its usage."
"Akamai is an expensive tool. Moreover, we have a pay-as-you-go model for additional features."
"The solution can be one of the more expensive options, reflecting their established market position."
"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 pricing for the service is reasonable, neither excessively cheap nor prohibitively expensive. It aligns well with the value of their solution."
"A free version of the solution is available."
"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."
"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."
"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."
"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
"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."
"The solution has many features but there are ones that you need to pay for. Sometimes you have to find out which is available for free and which you have to pay for."
Information not 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
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
No data available
 

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 Business45
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise25
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?
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...
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.
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Comparisons

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Also Known As

No data available
Cloudflare DNS
IBM Ustream
 

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.
Airbnb, N3 Results, University of Notre Dame
Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in CDN. Updated: September 2025.
867,953 professionals have used our research since 2012.