We compared Akamai and Cloudflare based on our user's reviews in several parameters.
In summary, the key differences between Akamai and Cloudflare are highlighted in user feedback regarding their valuable features, customer service, implementation duration, pricing, return on investment, and areas for improvement. While Akamai is praised for exceptional performance, speed, and personalized solutions, Cloudflare stands out for its robust security measures, user-friendly interface, and efficient caching capabilities. Akamai receives positive feedback for its responsive customer service, competitive pricing, and positive ROI, while Cloudflare is commended for its real-time threat detection, flexible scalability, and reasonable cost. Areas for enhancement on Akamai include improving performance and speed, customer support, and analytics features, while Cloudflare could benefit from enhancements in network performance, user interface, documentation, customization options, pricing transparency, and integration with other services.
Features: Akamai's valuable features include exceptional performance, reliable content delivery, advanced security, efficient caching, and comprehensive analytics. On the other hand, Cloudflare offers robust security, reliable content delivery, efficient caching, user-friendly interface, enhanced website performance, protection against DDoS attacks, SSL support, easy DNS management, extensive analytics, real-time threat detection, and flexible scalability.
Pricing and ROI: When comparing the setup cost between Akamai and Cloudflare, both products are considered to have minimal and straightforward setup costs. Akamai offers flexible and customizable licensing options, accommodating different business needs. Cloudflare's licensing experience is smooth and satisfactory, with no expressed concerns or issues., Akamai users reported positive ROI with improved website performance and security, scalable and reliable platform. Cloudflare users also experienced positive ROI including improved website performance, increased security, and user-friendly interface.
Room for Improvement: Akamai could improve its performance and speed, user interface and navigation, customer support and responsiveness, occasional latency issues, and reporting and analytics features. Cloudflare could benefit from enhancements in network performance, user interface, documentation and support, customization options, pricing transparency, and integration with other services.
Deployment and customer support: Based on user feedback, both Akamai and Cloudflare have varying durations for establishing a new tech solution. However, Cloudflare emphasizes the importance of evaluating the context in which these terms are used, suggesting possible differences in deployment and setup phases., Akamai's customer service is highly praised for their responsive and efficient assistance, personalized solutions, and commitment to customer satisfaction. Cloudflare is commended for their exceptional assistance, quick and knowledgeable responses, and reliable and efficient support.
The summary above is based on 29 interviews we conducted recently with Akamai and Cloudflare users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"The solution is very sustainable and flexible."
"The solution's technical support is very prompt and good."
"As of now, the best thing about Akamai is WAF, and though CDN is a good feature, it comes in second place when compared to WAF. I am very impressed with the WAF offered by Akamai."
"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."
"Akamai is leveraged by many top-level businesses, ensuring reliability and support in case of outages or issues."
"Akamai's scalability is good."
"Akamai has a very established network of PoPs globally."
"This solution can be used for web , video and media caching and streaming."
"We're using dynamic components to build flexible pages to create and manage Git merge requests for code and reviews."
"Generally, I am satisfied with this product."
"The solution provides good load balancing and protection against DDoS attacks."
"From what I've seen so far, there are no negatives to report as of yet"
"There are key things that are used for our enterprise customers, such as Lambda and DNS."
"Easier http to https redirect using page rules"
"I like Cloudflare's application gateway and DDoS protection."
"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."
"The solution could offer more integrations."
"I'd like to see more Web 3.0 and IoT solutions."
"Akamai could improve by providing its own cloud services. We have to use third-party cloud services at this time, such as Amazon AWS. The offering becomes a lot easier for an SMB if everything was in one single platform to be used for the services."
"The product's scalability can be improved since certain shortcomings regarding the security part of the solution currently exist."
"Akamai's configuration part is an area of concern where improvements are required to make the process easy."
"I would like to see improvements in the security aspect. The web application firewall needs to be enhanced and offers more customization options."
"Caching strategy is an area with certain shortcomings in the solution where improvements are required."
"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."
"It would be good if Cloudflare could have more servers for better traffic routing or an increase in the traffic routed. This is what I'd like to improve in Cloudflare."
"The solution could work at being less expensive. It costs a lot to use it."
"In the last two years, there has been a certain amount of downtime when using the VDM."
"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."
"The pricing could be improved."
"Cloudflare could offer a better view or maybe dashboards of the main resources used in the client."
"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."
"Cloudflare does not have an on-premise solution. If they had different approaches they could be better suited to accommodate more customers, such as on-premise and hybrid deployments. For example, hybrid deployments would be useful where you could move the traffic from the enterprise to the cloud."
Akamai is ranked 3rd in CDN with 18 reviews while Cloudflare is ranked 1st in CDN with 56 reviews. Akamai is rated 9.0, while Cloudflare is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Akamai writes "An easy to setup product offering multiple useful functionalities under a single package". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Cloudflare writes "It's easy to set up because you point the DNS to it, and it's working in under 15 minutes". Akamai is most compared with Azure Front Door, Imperva DDoS, Amazon CloudFront, Fastly and AWS Global Accelerator, whereas Cloudflare is most compared with Azure Front Door, Imperva DDoS, Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, AWS Shield and Arbor DDoS. See our Akamai vs. Cloudflare report.
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