Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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."
"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."
"With 300 servers deployed worldwide, it's highly scalable and is the best web application firewall on the market."
"The solution's technical support is very prompt and 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."
"Akamai is leveraged by many top-level businesses, ensuring reliability and support in case of outages or issues."
"The tool is user-friendly."
"Centralized, full-featured DNS."
"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."
"The solution is very good at mitigating threats."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is its usability."
"The solution is stable, and the DNS servers are simple to use."
"Its ease of integration with Office 365 and the fact that it's a good product compared to what I had before"
"It's super easy to use and integrate with."
"The Rules Engine V4 is the most valuable feature."
"The tool's most valuable feature is the Uplynk platform for streaming purposes."
"The product is easy to use and easy to implement."
"The customer support and service responsiveness were excellent."
 

Cons

"The product's scalability can be improved since certain shortcomings regarding the security part of the solution currently exist."
"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."
"Local connectivity would be great linked to our own telecom/Cablevision CDN."
"I'd like to see improvements in log files and data visualizations within the interface."
"I would like to see improvements in the security aspect. The web application firewall needs to be enhanced and offers more customization options."
"Akamai's configuration part is an area of concern where improvements are required to make the process easy."
"I'd like to see more Web 3.0 and IoT solutions."
"Akamai should improve its integrations."
"There are some issues with the CDN services."
"Cloudflare's console should be made more user-friendly."
"Cloudflare could be improved by introducing a mid-tier pricing option."
"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."
"Latencies are always a problem."
"DNS Management."
"Support response time could be improved."
"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."
"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."
"In the next release, I would like to see more global endpoints for their CDN and a lower price."
"We could not create more than 15 custom rules."
"The tool needs to resolve its lack of innovation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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 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 price of Akamai could be less expensive."
"This is a very expensive solution but it works well."
"The solution can be one of the more expensive options, reflecting their established market position."
"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"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 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."
"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."
"The pricing for the service is reasonable, neither excessively cheap nor prohibitively expensive. It aligns well with the value of their solution."
"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."
"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."
"Be careful about the options because to have all the features can be very expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which CDN solutions are best for your needs.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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%
Educational Organization
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Educational Organization
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
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.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.