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Cloudflare vs IBM NS1 Connect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.2
Cloudflare's services enhanced security and efficiency, resulting in significant ROI, cost savings, and improved WordPress performance for businesses.
Sentiment score
5.4
IBM NS1 Connect boosts ROI through enhanced DNS management, improved uptime, automation, and efficiency without extra infrastructure costs.
For the small project I was working on, using the basic tier provided a huge improvement at zero cost.
Security Specialist at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
In terms of return on investment with Cloudflare, it costs my time to set them up, but basically once they're set up, it's done.
Owner at Hga consulting
The return on investment for me is significant as time is the critical aspect.
Senior Network and Security Expert at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
I have definitely seen a return on investment with IBM NS1 Connect as it has given our organization more control and flexibility in managing DNS at a global scale, which almost was impossible before.
Senior Software Engineer at PwC
I have seen a return on investment with IBM NS1 Connect, as application uptime has improved by 40% to 45%.
Software Engineer at Abbott
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
Cloudflare's support is responsive and knowledgeable, with varying experiences depending on the plan and need for faster escalation.
Sentiment score
8.3
IBM NS1 Connect offers 24/7 proactive support, with highly professional teams ensuring client satisfaction, despite occasional slow responses.
Cloudflare does not offer hands-on technical support to fix customer problems but rather a self-service model.
Senior Consultant CDN at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
I would rate the technical support with Cloudflare as excellent every time I've had to call them.
Owner at Hga consulting
We use other solutions where support is available through Slack channels and is more interactive, with someone responding within a couple of minutes or seconds.
General Manager at bKash Limited
They are very proactive and supportive, available 24/7.
Software Engineer at Abbott
The customer support for IBM NS1 Connect is very proactive and responsive twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
Senior Software Engineer at PwC
You raise a PR, and then it takes several weeks for them to respond.
Assosiate Director at TIAA
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Cloudflare excels in scalability, supporting seamless transitions and performance during high-traffic periods, highly rated by users.
Sentiment score
6.5
IBM NS1 Connect excels at scalability, managing high query volumes and traffic shifts, ensuring reliability and responsiveness globally.
It is a SaaS tool, but the fact that they have workloads deployed across the world proves that it is a highly scalable tool.
Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
The tool offers very good performance, even during high-traffic periods.
Engineer at SITMEXICO
Cloudflare's scalability is quite good; it is very easy to scale whenever we want to include multiple domains.
Senior Network and Security Expert at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
It has managed to handle all my organization's growth.
Software Engineer at Abbott
When the number of users increases, it can distribute traffic automatically across multiple servers, clouds, or regions.
Especialista De Produtos at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Cloudflare is reliable with high stability ratings, minimal issues, improved network connectivity, and praised fast DNS services.
Sentiment score
8.3
IBM NS1 Connect offers reliable performance and stability, effectively managing traffic and maintaining uptime even during DDoS attacks.
The service is very stable with no impacts during high-traffic periods.
Engineer at SITMEXICO
Cloudflare's reliability and uptime has met my expectations; it has been quite good in general.
Senior Network and Security Expert at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
IBM NS1 Connect is very stable as I have not experienced any lagging or downtime.
Senior Software Engineer at PwC
IBM NS1 Connect is very stable.
Software Engineer at Abbott
 

Room For Improvement

Users suggest improvements in Cloudflare's features, pricing, support, analytics, documentation, and partner relations for better service experience.
IBM NS1 Connect users seek a more intuitive interface, improved features, better resources, pricing transparency, and clearer DNS management.
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.
General Manager at bKash Limited
What Cloudflare is doing internally is that it is stepping ahead in areas like detection and protection.
Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Cloudflare could be improved by introducing a mid-tier pricing option.
Security Specialist at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Pricing can be more transparent, especially when dealing with tight budgets.
Senior Software Engineer at PwC
DNS timeout issues should be resolved.
Software Engineer at Abbott
I think the support for upcoming technical updates in IBM NS1 Connect could be improved as they are not up to the mark, and their development or new enhancements are very slow.
Data Protection Specialist at CompuCom
 

Setup Cost

Cloudflare provides cost-effective, feature-rich plans for varying traffic needs, offering significant value compared to competitors like Akamai.
IBM NS1 Connect offers good value with competitive pricing, though some users note transparency and cost challenges in competitive situations.
I find it to be cheap.
Engineer at SITMEXICO
The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive.
Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
However, the enterprise price for small projects is a bit high.
Security Specialist at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Other competitors have offered a very low price compared to IBM, and that aspect is very tough for us to convince clients.
Data Protection Specialist at CompuCom
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing of IBM NS1 Connect has been that it is one of the most cost-effective tools and very affordable.
Software Engineer at Abbott
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing has been that I found it a bit expensive and had some difficulty with the language issue, having to use a translator for licensing.
Especialista De Produtos at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

Cloudflare offers superior caching, DNS management, and security, enhancing performance, global reach, and domain management with innovative features.
IBM NS1 Connect offers API-driven automation, real-time monitoring, and intelligent traffic routing for enhanced performance and user experiences.
The solution has been able to compare it to the market, and I think the product has taken great strides in automating quite a bit of things, and they use a lot of AI.
Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Most of our DNS records that are presented to the internet are proxied whenever possible, providing another layer of defense from our perspective.
Senior Security Engineer at ManpowerGroup
Cloudflare has positively impacted our organization by giving us flexibility to manage the DNS part, being quite fast, and allowing us to manage everything from a single dashboard.
Senior Network and Security Expert at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
The intelligence criterion directs the user to the best server based on latency and availability with 100% SLA for DNS resolution, and the API makes automation easier and reduces manual errors, plus it detects failures and redirects users.
Especialista De Produtos at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The best features that IBM NS1 Connect offers include routing based on user verification, endpoint switching based on latency, DNS response time, real-time monitoring, intelligent traffic routing capabilities, API-driven functionality, HTTPS redirects, secondary DNS, and API integrations.
Senior Software Engineer at PwC
The intelligent traffic routing and API-driven features of IBM NS1 Connect have helped my team by allowing routing based on user location, endpoint switching based on latency, and DNS response time.
Software Engineer at Abbott
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare
Ranking in Managed DNS
1st
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), WAN Optimization (4th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (9th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (2nd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th)
IBM NS1 Connect
Ranking in Managed DNS
6th
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
8th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Managed DNS category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 24.7%, down from 34.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM NS1 Connect is 2.7%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed DNS Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cloudflare24.7%
IBM NS1 Connect2.7%
Other72.6%
Managed DNS
 

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.
DavidJackson1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at Abbott
Smart routing has improved uptime and performance and enables real-time automated traffic control
The best features IBM NS1 Connect offers, in my opinion, are real-time monitoring, intelligent traffic routing capabilities, and being API driven. The intelligent traffic routing and API-driven features of IBM NS1 Connect have helped my team by allowing routing based on user location, endpoint switching based on latency, and DNS response time. Additionally, IBM NS1 Connect has API integration. IBM NS1 Connect positively impacts my organization by making our website load faster and enhancing the user interface to be more intuitive and user-friendly. It's very economical and cost-effective. I also love it because it saves time through automation, saving around 30% to 35% of our time and also saving man-source. Our application uptime has improved by 40% to 45%. Although there have been a few outages, the service uptime has significantly improved our trust with clients. It is very cost-effective and affordable, hence providing a great return on investment.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
6%
 

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 Business1
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise13
 

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 GRE tunnels. We have decreased site load times on Mobile 3G from 8 to 1,6 seconds ...
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 that offers great redundancy and advanced security with built-in unmetered and ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare DNS?
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Cloudflare are a bit on the higher side overall.
What needs improvement with NS1 Managed DNS?
The aspect that needs improvement about IBM NS1 Connect is that the integration with AI is not seamless at this moment. That particular portion needs to be re-evaluated. We were able to increase th...
What is your primary use case for NS1 Managed DNS?
I have worked on both deployment models of IBM NS1 Connect in the company's environment and in the clouds. I utilize IBM NS1 Connect's Intelligent Traffic Steering feature.
What advice do you have for others considering NS1 Managed DNS?
I purchased IBM NS1 Connect through AWS Marketplace. We do use analytical tools built into the product. I rate this product 9 out of 10.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
NS1 Managed DNS, NS1
 

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.
Avast Software, Bloomberg L.P., BBC, Carfax, CNBC LLC, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Disney Streaming, Dropbox, EBAY Inc, Gannett Media Corp, Salesforce, Wayfair, Workday
Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare vs. IBM NS1 Connect and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.