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Akamai vs StackPath CDN comparison

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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Ranking in CDN
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
WAN Optimization (4th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (3rd), Managed DNS (1st), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (5th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (18th)
Akamai
Ranking in CDN
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
StackPath CDN
Ranking in CDN
15th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
9.3
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 16.4%, down from 21.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai is 12.6%, down from 16.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StackPath CDN is 2.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CDN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cloudflare16.4%
Akamai12.6%
StackPath CDN2.6%
Other68.4%
CDN
 

Featured Reviews

M.A. Faisal - PeerSpot reviewer
General Manager at bKash Limited
Advanced protection has secured critical web workloads and provides clear traffic visibility
From a security perspective, there remains a security loophole, as some browsers in the market can bypass the Turnstile solution, which requires approximately 40 seconds to do so. From a performance perspective, this is acceptable. We also tried Google reCAPTCHA, and that can also be bypassed. From a security perspective, I would say neither solution is completely secured. Regarding uptime, we have faced a couple of incidents due to Cloudflare in recent years, so I cannot say we receive 100% uptime for our region. We sometimes face challenges, including downtime and other issues. As a result, we are not receiving 100% uptime from Cloudflare's solution. Since most of our customers are in this region, we need alternatives. We need something more competitive than Cloudflare. Unfortunately, in Bangladesh, Cloudflare has three points of presence already, and we cannot find any other solution provider in Bangladesh as an alternative, which presents another challenge. Competitor solutions have more attack signatures, which ensure better security compared to Cloudflare's predefined configurations. Customers do not have options to modify any configuration parameters in Cloudflare, whereas other competitor solutions, such as F5 Distributed Cloud, allow customers to tune configurations according to their requirements. Cloudflare could improve in this area. Additionally, regarding visibility, Cloudflare has static visibility, but they could adopt dynamic graph features for their customers.
JV
Sr. Strategic Accounts Manager at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Improved security and faster operations with a seamless integration
They are one of the top solution vendors in the market. Premium though, but they're the best. We've worked closely with digital-native customers, not so much from the media segment. Fintechs, financial organizations, banking segment, manufacturing, these are the ones we have worked with. Not much on media because most of the media houses are already covered by Akamai. 95% of media houses are already covered by Akamai. 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. It depends on the customer's environment. Wherever the customer wants, but mostly it is on the private cloud or public cloud because it's a cloud-based SaaS solution that Akamai has to offer. Implementation is feasible anywhere. The solution is aimed at Enterprise customers because it is on a premium side. On a scale of 1-10, this solution rates at 9.5.
it_user253797 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Consultant, Business Owner, Lecturer at a tech consulting company with 10,001+ employees
​We had some issues with errors popping up here and there on our Drupal log, but it improved the downloading of static content for our websites.
We had some issues with errors popping up here and there on our Drupal log, but nothing serious. One minor issue was that when we decided to stop using MaxCDN, since all images on our site were converted to links to MaxCDN, sites linking to our images (including Google) would have an issue. For that reason, generally it is better to chose a CDN that is activated just by changing your name servers rather than using a module on your site.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is easier to configure and develop documentation to see how we have configured firewalls."
"Cloudflare DNS is widely used, and it's good for websites. If we use Cloudflare DNS and update one record, it updates in their office instantly."
"If someone is looking for a secure and optimized wrapper over an open website, I would suggest CloudFlare services."
"Cloudflare is a security SaaS provider that provides security and protects us from any application layer attack."
"The API gives us the ability to remote control our DNS settings."
"It's a great product because it's scalable, has great coverage, and is mature with good defenses against DDoS attacks."
"Centralized, full-featured DNS."
"The simplicity of the overall dashboard makes it a great product for a user like me who has less understanding of the internet than a developer or other more technical people. It gives me peace of mind. I also love the easy customization of the Page Rules."
"Akamai has a very established network of PoPs globally."
"The stability and efficiency of Akamai have enhanced our network's performance significantly."
"The support from Akamai is fantastic, as they have one of the best supports available and you have assigned engineers targeting specific issues, making the use of the support services very easy."
"Akamai has been providing this service for 20 years and they have never had a substantial outage, they even have some products that have an uptime of over 20 years, the stability is very good."
"Akamai is leveraged by many top-level businesses, ensuring reliability and support in case of outages or issues."
"The stability and efficiency of Akamai have enhanced our network's performance significantly."
"The worldwide reach of the Akamai CDN is one of the key values of this CDN and the agreements worldwide that they keep running."
"Akamai provides low-latency throughput."
"MaxCDN improved the downloading of static content for our websites, and with multiple nodes all over the world it significantly improved the user experience."
 

Cons

"We're facing challenges due to an upgrade in the machine learning model. The problem arises from some users abusing the APIs, resulting in an influx of suspicious traffic. Cloudflare's learning model mistakenly identifies this traffic as human. Consequently, it assigns it a higher trust score, akin to legitimate human traffic, causing complications in our architecture. Previously, such traffic would have been categorized as suspicious, enabling us to apply appropriate blocking rules. However, we encounter difficulties distinguishing between genuine and suspicious traffic with the new categorization. Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor."
"I think they have failed with their technical support."
"Access to the solution's dashboards is not intended for a service company. You are practically blind, and to validate a problem, you must view the customer's screen."
"The Always Online feature has room for improvement. It seems to work sometimes and not others even with the pro version."
"There should at least be a read-only view of the data so that resellers can properly support the clients."
"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."
"I would like to not need a separate server for non-www redirection under the CNAME setup option."
"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."
"Local connectivity would be great linked to our own telecom/Cablevision CDN, as we are a key player for Internet access in Argentina for final users of mobile, DSL, cable, and FTTH users."
"The price of Akamai could be less expensive."
"Sometimes a little hard to navigate around the user console."
"Akamai's configuration part is an area of concern where improvements are required to make the process easy."
"Akamai should improve its integrations."
"Costing-wise and integration with other tools need improvement, especially API security."
"I'd like to see more Web 3.0 and IoT solutions."
"Local connectivity would be great linked to our own telecom/Cablevision CDN."
"We had some issues with errors popping up here and there on our Drupal log, but nothing serious."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."
"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."
"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."
"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 tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."
"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."
"We are using the free tier of the solution."
"Quite high in price, but equivalent to other enterprise products on the market"
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
5%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise26
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise14
No data available
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare?
The tool's pricing is moderate. I rate the product’s pricing a five out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expens...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Akamai?
The pricing is good, with no complaints about costs, which is essential when deciding to have Akamai in your network.
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Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
NetDNA, MaxCDN
 

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
The Next Web, Moot Inc., TemplateMonster, BuySellAds, WebPageTest, WP Engine, jQuery Foundation, WPBeginner, Yoast.com, Gittip LLC
Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare, Imperva, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in CDN. Updated: May 2026.
896,034 professionals have used our research since 2012.