Akamai vs Uplynk comparison

Akamai and Uplynk are both solutions in the CDN category. Akamai is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.4, while Uplynk is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.0. Akamai holds a 15.8% mindshare in CDN, compared to Uplynk’s 4.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Akamai users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Uplynk users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 14, 2025

Akamai and Uplynk compete in the content delivery and streaming services sector. Akamai has an edge with its robust global infrastructure and security, whereas Uplynk excels in streaming technologies and user-centered design.

Features: Akamai's extensive CDN network, strong security protocols, and reliability in threat protection are highly valued. It also offers easy integration and regular updates. Uplynk is noted for its adaptive streaming technology, ease of integration, and user-friendly platform, making it ideal for media companies seeking superior streaming solutions.

Room for Improvement: Akamai could enhance its pricing structure and focus more on specialized streaming features. It may also benefit from improving its adaptive technology to match evolving media demands. Uplynk should look at expanding its CDN reach to compete globally and enhance its security measures. Additionally, providing more customization options for large-scale deployments could be beneficial.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Akamai provides a straightforward deployment process with strong customer support and established resources for quick issue resolution. Uplynk offers a cloud-based deployment model that is streamlined and efficient, with responsive customer service tailored for streaming needs. Uplynk's approach is more suited for rapid and specialized streaming setups.

Pricing and ROI: Akamai's setup costs are higher, reflecting its broad service offerings, but it provides good ROI with scalability and reliability. Uplynk's competitive pricing and focus on excellent streaming features offer strong ROI for media-focused businesses. Uplynk's cost-effectiveness makes it appealing for companies with specific streaming needs, whereas Akamai's value lies in its comprehensive infrastructure capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed Akamai vs. Uplynk Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Akamai vs. Uplynk

December 2025

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 20.0%, down from 21.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai is 15.8%, up from 15.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Uplynk is 4.3%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

CDN Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Cloudflare	20.0%
Akamai	15.8%
Uplynk	4.3%
Other	59.900000000000006%

CDN

Featured Reviews

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

Has helped manage client domains with streamlined access control and threat visibility

I don't know what areas could be improved with Cloudflare WAF; Cloudflare is constantly improving and adding features to their feature set. They're doing a good job, and as far as DNS and support for any domains that I create or my clients create, it's mandatory for me to make sure that they have Cloudflare as their DNS provider. The Cloudflare load balancing capability hasn't really helped in enhancing my website's uptime and resiliency because we don't really get that much traffic; it's mostly remote users, and web hosting is done by a web hosting service. It doesn't pay to try to host your own website.

Read full review

VinuThomas John

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.

Read full review

Joe Hernandez

Senior Software Engineer at OmniTier Inc

Improved mobile app development and user experience through optimization and security

The most valuable aspects include the optimization of application performance by optimizing API calls for a smoother user experience and faster load times. Furthermore, I restructured our code base to establish a more efficient development workflow. During my tenure, I integrated various security features for mobile applications, such as JWT tokens for secure authentication and data encryption using AES algorithms. I also focused on secure storage options, secure coding practices, and platform-specific security compliance, like Android's SafeNet and iOS Secure Enclave.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Generally, I am satisfied with this product."

"The UI is good."

"From what I've seen so far, there are no negatives to report as of yet"

"The solution is stable, and the DNS servers are simple to use."

"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."

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is security."

"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."

"I like Cloudflare's application gateway and DDoS protection."

More Cloudflare pros

"Akamai has a very established network of PoPs globally."

"Akamai provides low-latency throughput."

"The solution's technical support is very good...The installation phase of Akamai was easy."

"Akamai is leveraged by many top-level businesses, ensuring reliability and support in case of outages or issues."

"The initial setup is simple, especially for SaaS solutions."

"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 solution's technical support is very prompt and good."

"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."

More Akamai pros

"The product is easy to use and easy to implement."

"The tool's most valuable feature is the Uplynk platform for streaming purposes."

"The customer support and service responsiveness were excellent."

"It's super easy to use and integrate with."

"The Rules Engine V4 is the most valuable feature."

Cons

"The reporting can definitely be improved to offer a lot more explanation on something that may have happened or has actually happened."

"The product needs to improve its automation."

"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."

"Integration involving API with other products could be more user-friendly."

"Technical support is lacking."

"DNS Management."

"There might be helpful if there was some web application firewall feature."

"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."

More Cloudflare cons

"Caching strategy is an area with certain shortcomings in the solution where improvements are required."

"Their support is very slow. If you file a support ticket, it takes a long time before it gets resolved."

"The fact that it is an expensive product is its only shortcoming."

"I'd like to see improvements in log files and data visualizations within the interface."

"When we open tickets, we have a delay in response times."

"Costing-wise and integration with other tools need improvement, especially API security."

"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."

"I'd like to see more Web 3.0 and IoT solutions."

More Akamai cons

"We could not create more than 15 custom rules."

"The tool needs to resolve its lack of innovation."

"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."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."

"I give the price a five out of ten."

"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."

"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."

"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 price is reasonable."

"We don't have any issues with the price."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"The solution can be one of the more expensive options, reflecting their established market position."

"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."

"This is a very expensive solution but it works well."

"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."

"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."

More Akamai pricing and cost advice

"When I modeled it out, we are spending somewhere between $600 to $800 a month with Verizon EdgeCast."

"Be careful about the options because to have all the features can be very expensive."

"The product is cheaper compared to other solutions."

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Comparison Review

it_user69348

Partner at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Comms Service Provider

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	25

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	14

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...

See all answers

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...

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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.

See all answers

What do you like most about Akamai?

The most valuable feature in managing web traffic has been the ability to handle vertical scaling effectively.

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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...

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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...

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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 ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Edgio Global CDN?

Regarding improvements, I focused on testing and compatibility to ensure reliability across various mobile devices. B...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 52% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Myra Security DDoS Protection vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

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Azure Front Door vs Akamai

Compared 16% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Akamai

Compared 12% of the time

Fastly vs Akamai

Compared 11% of the time

Amazon CloudFront vs Akamai

Compared 6% of the time

AWS Global Accelerator vs Akamai

Compared 3% of the time

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Azure Front Door vs Uplynk

Compared 14% of the time

Windows Azure CDN vs Uplynk

Compared 8% of the time

Fastly vs Uplynk

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon CloudFront vs Uplynk

Compared 5% of the time

Lumen Content Delivery Network vs Uplynk

Compared 5% of the time

More Uplynk Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

December 2025

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

Akamai

December 2025

Download Akamai product report

Buyer's Guide

Data Replication

November 2025

Download Uplynk product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

No data available

Edgio, Limelight Content Delivery, Limelight Orchestrate Delivery, Limelight Origin Storage, Global CDN, Verizon EdgeCast

Overview

Cloudflare enhances web performance and security with features like CDN caching and DDoS mitigation while providing easy DNS management and intuitive setup through its user-friendly dashboard.

Cloudflare is recognized for its comprehensive web security and performance solutions. Speed improvements are achieved through caching mechanisms and DDoS protection, combining ease of DNS management with flexible page rules. The robust analytics and threat insight tools provide valuable data, assisted by a user-friendly dashboard allowing quick setup and configuration. An API offers dynamic DNS settings ensuring low latency and high performance across the globe.

What are Cloudflare's key features?

CDN Caching: Enhances website speed through content delivery network caching.
Web Application Firewall: Protects websites from online threats.
DDoS Mitigation: Shields against distributed denial-of-service attacks.
DNS Management: Offers easy-to-use and flexible domain management.
SSL Certificates: Ensures secure connections between users and servers.
Analytics: Provides insights with robust analytics tools.

What benefits and ROI should users evaluate?

Enhanced Security: Strengthening web security with DDoS and firewall protection.
Speed Improvement: Faster content delivery with CDN caching.
Operational Simplicity: Simplifies website optimization through a user-friendly interface.
Scalable Solutions: Scales with global reach, lowering latency for improved performance.
Cost Efficiency: Offers layers of valuable functionality with pricing options.

Cloudflare finds utility across industries for DNS management and defense mechanisms. Its content delivery network assures fast content distribution and fortified security. Businesses integrate features like web application firewalls, load balancing, end-to-end SSL, and zero trust to protect websites from cyber threats while ensuring resilience and reliable performance.

Cloudflare

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.

Akamai

Uplynk is a robust platform providing CDN integration and optimized streaming services, improving user experience and application performance. It offers control over CDN caching, redirects, and asset transformations, supporting seamless asset management and mobile security.

Uplynk enhances application performance through efficient API calls, optimized web server loads, and robust CDN configurations. It ensures high availability and performance by leveraging Verizon EdgeCast CDN, crucial for managing high-volume traffic on e-commerce platforms. Though Uplynk excels in asset caching and mobile security with JWT tokens and AES encryption, some users note its global reach needs improvement, and its interface lacks modern user-friendliness. Deployment of new rules can be slower compared to competitors, while documentation and rate limiting features require enhancement. Despite this, Uplynk remains a preferred choice for organizations seeking streamlined web server load optimization and enhanced application performance.

What are Uplynk's key features?

Rules Engine V4: Manages CDN caching, redirects, and asset transformations.
Seamless Integration: Easily integrates with Verizon's existing offerings.
Efficient API Calls: Enhances streaming and application performance.
Staging Support: Testing in staging environments without impacting production.
Mobile Security: Includes JWT tokens and AES encryption.

What benefits should users expect in reviews?

Improved Load Times: Efficient CDN configurations enhance site speed.
Enhanced User Navigation: Optimized performance for high-volume traffic.
DDoS Protection: Layer 3, 4, and 7 protection for comprehensive security.
Performance Optimization: Mobile development and streamlined caching.

Organizations deploy Uplynk to optimize web server load, enhance streaming service performance and support high-traffic volume management, especially in e-commerce. Its security measures, combined with Verizon EdgeCast CDN, ensure high availability and reliable performance, enhancing mobile engagement through specialized frameworks.

Uplynk

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

TD Ameritrade, Plus500, Solvay Bank, Yahoo, Deckers Brands, and Coach

Buyer's Guide

Akamai vs. Uplynk

December 2025

Free Report: Akamai vs. Uplynk

Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai vs. Uplynk and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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