Akamai vs Cloudflare vs Fastly comparison

Cancel
You must select at least 2 products to compare!
Akamai Logo
6,855 views|6,183 comparisons
Cloudflare Logo
10,188 views|8,825 comparisons
Fastly Logo
1,400 views|1,164 comparisons
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Akamai, Cloudflare, and Fastly based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare, Microsoft, Akamai and others in CDN.
To learn more, read our detailed CDN Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"With 300 servers deployed worldwide, it's highly scalable and is the best web application firewall on the market.""We can see how much traffic can be downloaded on the portal.""Akamai has a very established network of PoPs globally.""The solution's technical support is very good...The installation phase of Akamai was easy.""Akamai's scalability is good.""Akamai is leveraged by many top-level businesses, ensuring reliability and support in case of outages or issues.""The solution is very sustainable and flexible.""Akamai provides low-latency throughput."

More Akamai Pros →

"Cloudflare has many features.""The UI is good.""The technical support is good.""It is easier to configure and develop documentation to see how we have configured firewalls.""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.""Generally, I am satisfied with this product.""Cloudflare is a security SaaS provider that provides security and protects us from any application layer attack.""The DDoS protection is the most valuable aspect of the solution."

More Cloudflare Pros →

"Its initial setup process is straightforward.""Rate limiting is a good feature that protects from volumetric attacks.""The product helps our organization to access sites located in different regions quickly.""Compute@Edge features are valuable to me.""Fastly uses configuration versioning, where you can deploy a new version in less than one minute.""Support is good; the product works as advertised. We have a Slack connection with them. So we can basically ask for help, live, engage, and ring when they respond. Very quickly."

More Fastly Pros →

Cons
"I would like to see improvements in the security aspect. The web application firewall needs to be enhanced and offers more customization options.""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.""The fact that it is an expensive product is its only shortcoming.""Their support is very slow. If you file a support ticket, it takes a long time before it gets resolved.""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.""The solution could offer more integrations.""Caching strategy is an area with certain shortcomings in the solution where improvements are required."

More Akamai Cons →

"Support response time could be improved.""Cloudflare could offer a better view or maybe dashboards of the main resources used in the client.""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.""The solution could use more analytics on the backend to give us more insights into everything. More reports would be helpful.""I think the APIs are a little bit hard for us to work with. The APIs could be more open so that we could integrate better with our SolarWinds or our monitoring solution.""If they improve on the placement of their data centers, it would be better. I'm living in a remote area. I would like to connect to them without any kind of lag.""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.""The solution could work at being less expensive. It costs a lot to use it."

More Cloudflare Cons →

"The solution's pricing could be better.""It is missing a "staging" platform to deploy a test configuration with all of the real settings, which would allow us to properly test before putting it into production.""Stronger analytics would be helpful, like showing configurations that haven't served a certain amount of traffic in a while. With many properties, things can get lost track of - duplicates or unused configurations not properly decommissioned.""The product should provide improved bot detection and management.""Support is not that great.""Fastly's customer service area needs improvement."

More Fastly Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "This is a very expensive solution but it works well."
  • "Quite high in price, but equivalent to other enterprise products on the market"
  • "The price of Akamai could be less expensive."
  • "The solution's pricing is based on bandwidth."
  • "The solution can be one of the more expensive options, reflecting their established market position."
  • "Akamai is an expensive tool. Moreover, we have a pay-as-you-go model for additional features."
  • "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 price of the solution depends upon its usage."
  • More Akamai Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."
  • "I think the pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."
  • "There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
  • "The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."
  • "We don't have any issues with the price."
  • "The price is reasonable."
  • "The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
  • "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."
  • More Cloudflare Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "In my opinion, Fastly is priced competitively."
  • "It is an expensive solution."
  • "The solution is cheaper than other products in the market."
  • "I've generally found Fastly to be very competitive in pricing, especially around Compute@Edge."
  • "Fastly is less expensive than one of its competitors."
  • "The pricing has been very competitive."
  • More Fastly Pricing and Cost Advice →

    report
    Use our free recommendation engine to learn which CDN solutions are best for your needs.
    765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    Comparison Review
    Anonymous User
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:It's a scalable and reliable solution.
    Top Answer:For Akamai, it is definitely one of the best tools out there. However, there are challenges with how their approach is… more »
    Top Answer:My company uses Akamai for all our web applications since it minimizes attacks, monitors traffic, and filters and blocks… more »
    Top Answer:Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GRE… more »
    Top Answer:Smaller businesses have seen great ROI due to the low investment and strong performance.
    Top Answer:Cloudflare's biggest plan for initial businesses is $200 per month, and if you're an enterprise, you'll likely exceed… more »
    Top Answer:Support is good; the product works as advertised. We have a Slack connection with them. So we can basically ask for… more »
    Top Answer:Stronger analytics would be helpful like showing configurations that haven't served a certain amount of traffic in a… more »
    Ranking
    3rd
    out of 34 in CDN
    Views
    6,855
    Comparisons
    6,183
    Reviews
    12
    Average Words per Review
    484
    Rating
    8.9
    1st
    out of 34 in CDN
    Views
    10,188
    Comparisons
    8,825
    Reviews
    15
    Average Words per Review
    529
    Rating
    8.3
    7th
    out of 34 in CDN
    Views
    1,400
    Comparisons
    1,164
    Reviews
    5
    Average Words per Review
    591
    Rating
    8.6
    Comparisons
    Azure Front Door logo
    Compared 22% of the time.
    Imperva DDoS logo
    Compared 14% of the time.
    Amazon CloudFront logo
    Compared 9% of the time.
    AWS Global Accelerator logo
    Compared 4% of the time.
    Verizon EdgeCast logo
    Compared 3% of the time.
    AWS WAF logo
    Compared 13% of the time.
    Edgio Global CDN logo
    Compared 10% of the time.
    Amazon CloudFront logo
    Compared 8% of the time.
    Imperva DDoS logo
    Compared 7% of the time.
    F5 Advanced WAF logo
    Compared 6% of the time.
    Learn More
    Overview

    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.

    Cloudflare is a highly-regarded Content Delivery Network (CDN) and a Distribution Denial of Service (DDoS) protection solution. The robust global cloud platform that is Cloudflare ensures users are able to connect to the internet quickly, securely, and reliably. Cloudflare is one of the world's largest networks in the marketplace today. Using Cloudflare, businesses, educational entities, NGOs, vloggers, bloggers, and anyone else with an internet presence can use the solution and experience more secure, faster websites and applications.

    Currently, there are millions of internet locations on Cloudflare, and the Cloudflare network continues to grow every day by the thousands. The solution is able to fulfill the requests for millions of websites seamlessly and serves on average 45 million HTTP requests per second.

    Cloudflare has safe, secure data centers in close to 300 cities worldwide to ensure every client request is filled as quickly as possible. It is Cloudflare’s edge network that makes this possible by keeping content and other services as close to each client as possible, so the information requests are always only seconds away.

    Many organizations that work in democracy, civil society, human rights, or the arts are able to access Cloudflare highest levels of protection for free via Project Galileo. Additionally, official election websites can be secured from hacking and fraud through Cloudflare’s Project Athenian, also at no additional cost.

    Cloudflare can also help organizations of all sizes develop a robust zero-trust strategy to ensure the highest levels of productivity and profitability. Employees, stakeholders, and end-users have a greater level of satisfaction and overall improved user experience, which can, in turn, result in higher revenues and overall ROI. Zero-trust and BYOD ( bring your own device) access ensure end-users and employees always have the best resources and technology available to them at all times.



    Cloudflare Benefits

    Cloudflare has many benefits. Some of its most valuable benefits include:

    • Faster load times
    • Robust DNS security
    • Intuitive cloud Web Application Firewall (WAF)
    • Free universal SSL
    • Image Enhancement
    • Automatic Browser Caching
    • Next-generation cloud load balancer
    • Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
    • Rate Limiting
    • Minification
    • Zero-trust capabilities 
    • Cost-effective
    • Reduced carbon footprint

    Reviews from Real Users

    “Many websites require an SSL certificate because they sell stuff and want SSL. Cloudflare comes with an SSL certificate built in. It's automatic. You sign yourself up for Cloudflare, and an SSL certificate automatically protects your website. If you have a connection between your website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host, you don't necessarily need a certificate.”  Spencer M., Owner at Tech Exchange

    “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.” Daniel P., Network engineer at Ufinet

    The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is the GUI. You are able to control the solution very well through the interface. There is a lot of functionality that is embedded in the service.” A PeerSpot user who is a Competence Center Manager at a tech services company. 

    Fastly helps the world’s most popular digital businesses keep pace with their customer expectations by delivering fast, secure, and scalable online experiences. Businesses trust Fastly’s edge cloud platform to accelerate the pace of technical innovation, mitigate evolving threats, and scale on demand.
    Sample Customers
    * **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**
    Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.
    Twitter, Airbnb, Alaska Airlines, Pinterest, Vimeo, The Guardian, The New York Times, Ticketmaster, The Drupal Association, Opera, about.com, imgur, Etsy, Foursquare, GitHub, New Relic, shopify, Shazam, Firebase
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider38%
    Media Company13%
    Leisure / Travel Company13%
    Consumer Goods Company13%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization27%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm23%
    Comms Service Provider23%
    Energy/Utilities Company9%
    Marketing Services Firm9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization37%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Comms Service Provider5%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company19%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Retailer9%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business40%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise45%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise33%
    Large Enterprise53%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business64%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise23%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise45%
    Large Enterprise36%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business71%
    Large Enterprise29%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise58%
    Buyer's Guide
    CDN
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare, Microsoft, Akamai and others in CDN. Updated: March 2024.
    765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.