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Akamai vs Link11 comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 6, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Ranking in CDN
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (13th)
Akamai
Ranking in CDN
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Link11
Ranking in CDN
11th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (21st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (12th), Bot Management (8th), API Security (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 22.2%, up from 21.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai is 17.3%, up from 15.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Link11 is 1.3%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CDN
 

Featured Reviews

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.
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.
PF
Exceptional resilience and protection well-suited for medium to large businesses
The initial setup process is quite straightforward. Its complexity largely depends on the intricacies of your platform. If your platform spans multiple sites across the globe, requiring configuration of multiple instances and traffic routing, it can become more intricate. From our experience, even in companies with extensive platforms, the configuration process remains relatively simple. Once the instances are spun up and the initial configurations are in place, you can use their console application to set up your site or sites for traffic management. This involves configuring the sites and uploading SSL certificates. Even for those not well-versed in the intricacies of networking layers and rules, the out-of-the-box configurations already provide solid protection.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool is user-friendly."
"DDoS attacks target unprotected machines. Cloudflare detects and stops these attacks using internal systems. It identifies incoming DDoS attacks, issuing challenges or blocking them immediately."
"The most valuable feature is its usability."
"The DDoS protection is the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is its global reach and it is always evolving."
"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."
"I rate its stability a ten out of ten."
"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."
"Akamai has a very established network of PoPs globally."
"With 300 servers deployed worldwide, it's highly scalable and is the best web application firewall on the market."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I very much like the elastic search and reports, allowing us to have a 360-degree view of the customer's activities and enabling us to track down any suspicious bots."
"We like the website protection. It's really good. The dashboard is really simple to use."
"The real-time monitoring and reporting are very good. There are information updates in their portal every two minutes. They also have the ability to spill it into Sumo Logic, for example. It's very easy to use."
"The best thing about Reblaze, for us, is that it has been a game changer because previously, we were using Google's Web Application Firewall, but it wasn't up to the mark."
"The feature I find most valuable is the user-friendly dashboard. It is easy to understand how everything works and it allows you to make decisions quickly and efficiently."
"Provides mobile app security."
"The main feature is using the rules and being able to see the traffic. It helps us find malicious traffic."
"Reblaze knows how to manage security. For me as, someone who knows little about security, it's good that I have a firm that optimizes everything according to their standards. It's their responsibility and they are fully hands-on."
 

Cons

"The timing aspect can lead to it being considered overpriced. This is a particular concern we have with Cloudflare, as they may struggle with accurately detecting the client."
"Cloudflare's console should be made more user-friendly."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Latencies are always a problem."
"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."
"For large enterprises, the pricing is okay. However, the enterprise price for small projects is a bit high. A mid-tier pricing option would be beneficial."
"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."
"It would be better if we could be notified about specific attacks."
"Local connectivity would be great linked to our own telecom/Cablevision CDN."
"One area for improvement with Akamai could be pricing."
"When we open tickets, we have a delay in response times."
"Costing-wise and integration with other tools need improvement, especially API security."
"On the commercials and pricing based on the region, they might have to work a bit because sometimes we lose on commercials."
"Akamai's configuration part is an area of concern where improvements are required to make the process easy."
"The WAF features are not as granular as we would expect from a WAF system. There should be more granularity and in-depth rules, out-of-the-box."
"It would be beneficial if it had a workflow or a feature that could fine-tune settings based on high-level requirements."
"They have an interface that you have to adjust to. That is a bit of a downfall because I expect an interface to be very intuitive for someone who knows little about security. But if you know about security, the interface is wonderful."
"There is room for improvement in helping us understanding session management... We want Reblaze to catch and identify everything. We want to see the various devices doing one activity and to see, in a timeline, what's happened. We would like to see a more human-readable display to understand what's happening in the web app."
"Up to now the only cons I could find is sometimes getting change management back on track, because it's a company that evolves, and sometimes I don't have the same needs that they have. But besides that, up until now, I am really pleased with their service and I've also recommended them to some of my clients."
"We have multiple products behind different instances of Reblaze. We have one instance for staging and then we have a production instance for multiple products. One of the things that we have requested is a unified view panel, so that we can see each of the instances in a unified view. That way, we won't have to go bouncing from instance to instance."
"Some of the settings on the dashboard are confusing."
"The next release should have next-generation automation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."
"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."
"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."
"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"The pricing for the service is reasonable, neither excessively cheap nor prohibitively expensive. It aligns well with the value of their solution."
"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."
"This is a very expensive solution but it works well."
"Quite high in price, but equivalent to other enterprise products on the market"
"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 solution's pricing is based on bandwidth."
"The solution can be one of the more expensive options, reflecting their established market position."
"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 the solution depends upon its usage."
"On a monthly basis we pay $750."
"We found the cost to be a bit on the higher side, starting at approximately three to four thousand dollars for a small configuration."
"There is still some room for improvement when it comes to bot management from Reblaze because they are relatively new compared to other vendors in the town."
"I believe that for the six instances we have right now, it's costing us $16,000 per month."
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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
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Performing Arts
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 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....
What do you like most about Reblaze?
It is a highly resilient product that can handle significantly larger workloads and high volumes of traffic with ease.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Reblaze?
We found the cost to be a bit on the higher side, starting at approximately three to four thousand dollars for a smal...
What needs improvement with Reblaze?
There is a potential improvement regarding simplifying the complexity of rule creation. It would be beneficial if it ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
Reblaze
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.
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
CBC, Hermes, Gartner
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai vs. Link11 and other solutions. Updated: August 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.