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Akamai Edge DNS vs IBM NS1 Connect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

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

Akamai Edge DNS
Ranking in Managed DNS
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Domain Name System (DNS) Security (9th)
IBM NS1 Connect
Ranking in Managed DNS
9th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Managed DNS category, the mindshare of Akamai Edge DNS is 1.9%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM NS1 Connect is 2.5%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed DNS Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM NS1 Connect2.5%
Akamai Edge DNS1.9%
Other95.6%
Managed DNS
 

Featured Reviews

YA
Head of Service Delivery at onme
Ensures global distribution and DDoS protection while offering seamless integration and low latency DNS responses
For user experience, Akamai Edge DNS should allow notes to be added for each record, as this is something Infoblox supports. Without notes, managing changes in DNS records can be difficult, especially for large companies with over 1,000 records, as they may not know who requested changes without proper documentation. I requested this feature two years ago, but it has not been added yet. Akamai Edge DNS could also improve its AI capabilities.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I recommend Akamai Edge DNS because it is distributed globally and prevents DDoS attacks."
"It is a very stable solution since it has a security feature that allows you to recover zone files if you accidentally delete them."
"We can maintain control of the configuration, and it seems to be covering the use case that we need."
"The high availability of Akamai Edge DNS is impressive due to their numerous POPs, which help in supporting all attacks, including DDoS counterattacks."
"I haven't had any problems with the stability of Akamai Edge DNS in the past five years."
"Overall, it has helped to improve our end-user experience."
"One of the features that is non-standard and that is very useful is the filtered DNS. We have set up our external VPN, which is what all our employees connect through, to use this feature. It's geolocation-aware. In that way, for India we set it up so that these are the servers that should be supporting things, and in the UK these servers, in the U.S. these servers, and in Sweden these ones."
"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, and I also love it because it saves time through automation, saving around 30% to 35% of our time and also saving man-source, while our application uptime has improved by 40% to 45%, making it very cost-effective and affordable and hence providing a great return on investment."
"In general, I would say that this has been the easiest solution to manage and implement."
"The provisioning is great. They have an API service that is simple to use and very quick. The changes that we make are replicated worldwide in a matter of usually milliseconds, sometimes seconds. They are done very rapidly. That's something that's obviously priceless when we're dealing with things like DNS."
"Their Pulsar filters allow us to collect RUM metrics from our users so that we can determine the best paths for our users to take. That has been very useful in providing the best user experience, and for responding to and recovering from downtime of our multiple CDNs."
"I couldn't recommend a better product than NS1 for managed DNS and CDN load balancing right now."
"Monitoring is really important for us. We really care about reliability, and we want to make sure that we can remove some points of presence in our sector and in our edge network really fast when we experience any problems. So, monitoring that NS1 provides for DNS is really important for us."
 

Cons

"The only area that needs improvement is the pricing for DNS zones."
"Akamai Edge DNS is expensive, and the pricing is higher compared to Infoblox."
"CNAME flattening is a feature that Akamai does not support."
"The solution has a fairly complex setup with our cloud vendors, including Microsoft, Salesforce, and Oracle."
"The only area that needs improvement is the pricing for DNS zones. The price is higher than competitors, and Akamai should offer a better pricing model."
"I would like to see the UI updated to allow me to do finer searches."
"I would like to see the UI updated to allow me to do finer searches. I would also like to have the ability to get reports that can sort based on various metrics. For example, I would like to be able to say, "Show me the top 10 records by total queries" in an easy-to-digest format."
"I would love to see improvement in the testing capabilities they provide. They have a simulate-filter feature so that you can simulate how your traffic would flow, based on their Filter Chains. I believe that was shut off for quite some time. Having that as a way to test our load-balanced CDN structure would be fantastic."
"The reporting metrics are great from an API standpoint, but it would be a little bit nicer if there was some type of dashboard around that. There should also be some type of reporting that's more executive-level focused."
"The reporting metrics are great from an API standpoint, but it would be a little bit nicer if there was some type of dashboard around that."
"I would love to see improvement in the testing capabilities they provide."
"Pricing can be more transparent, especially when dealing with tight budgets."
"We would really like them to become a DNS registrar."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Since Akamai is the industry leader, I imagine the solution would be a little more expensive than some other vendors."
"We pay about $30,000 a month. We used to pay about $20,000 with Dyn every month, for lower volume than we're doing right now, but it had none of the features that we have available with NS1, so it was worth it for us. It seems competitive for us, given that we're doing 4.5 billion requests."
"Everything can always be cheaper, but as it is today the pricing is fair."
"The cost of this product is one of the reasons that we chose it."
"NS1's pricing is much more aggressive than its competitors in the market and you get more value out of what you pay for it."
"From a cost standpoint, it's certainly not the most expensive out there, and it's also not the cheapest, but it does well to balance the cost and the functionality/reliability."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
5%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Akamai Edge DNS?
For user experience, Akamai Edge DNS should allow notes to be added for each record, as this is something Infoblox supports. Without notes, managing changes in DNS records can be difficult, especia...
What is your primary use case for Akamai Edge DNS?
As a reseller company for Akamai, my typical use case for Akamai Edge DNS is its distribution worldwide, providing DDoS attack prevention which is crucial in current times.
What advice do you have for others considering Akamai Edge DNS?
I recommend Akamai Edge DNS and rate the overall solution a ten out of ten. Akamai Edge DNS should improve its AI more to enhance the product's capabilities.
What needs improvement with NS1 Managed DNS?
IBM NS1 Connect can be improved by providing learning materials depicting flows that can help users who are completely new to networking, which would be great. Pricing can be more transparent, espe...
What is your primary use case for NS1 Managed DNS?
My main use case for IBM NS1 Connect is to improve user experience, and it offers smart routing, which helps sites to be reliable and performance gets improved. In my organization, the use case inv...
What advice do you have for others considering NS1 Managed DNS?
IBM NS1 Connect is an excellent traffic management system. It helps us to route traffic based on location, latency, and many other factors. The ability to automate DNS management is a key feature t...
 

Also Known As

Akamai Fast DNS
NS1 Managed DNS, NS1
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Otto Group
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 Akamai Edge DNS vs. IBM NS1 Connect and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.