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Akamai vs Amazon CloudFront comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

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
Sponsored
Ranking in CDN
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
WAN Optimization (4th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (2nd), Managed DNS (1st), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (5th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (17th)
Akamai
Ranking in CDN
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Amazon CloudFront
Ranking in CDN
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 15.8%, down from 21.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai is 12.0%, down from 16.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon CloudFront is 5.4%, down from 7.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CDN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cloudflare15.8%
Amazon CloudFront5.4%
Akamai12.0%
Other66.8%
CDN
 

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.
JV
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.
Nicolas Forgues - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Data & Content at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
Improved web performance has boosted content customization and currently delivers faster user experiences
From my perspective, I see some weaknesses in Amazon CloudFront; I would rate the product something around nine out of ten, but there are disadvantages compared to its competitors. Talking specifically about Amazon CloudFront, I think they could have some additional features in the future, and I believe they may lack certain functionalities.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We're partners with Cloudflare; this solution is the best product and it does not charge you for any kind of attack on your traffic, only for good traffic, and it can mitigate up to 30 TBPS of DDoS attacks."
"Easier http to https redirect using page rules"
"Its ease of integration with Office 365 and the fact that it's a good product compared to what I had before"
"The solution is very good at mitigating threats."
"The attacker won't have details since my public IP is anonymous. It offers us good privacy."
"I didn’t have to pay anything for better website security and reduced server load."
"It's a great product because it's scalable, has great coverage, and is mature with good defenses against DDoS attacks."
"The solution is a great fit for customers who want unlimited bandwidth."
"The solution's technical support is very good...The installation phase of Akamai was easy."
"The most valuable feature in managing web traffic has been the ability to handle vertical scaling effectively."
"The stability and efficiency of Akamai have enhanced our network's performance significantly."
"Akamai has a very established network of PoPs globally."
"Akamai has been providing this service for 20 years and they have never had a substantial outage, they even have some products that have an uptime of over 20 years, the stability is very good."
"The solution's technical support is very prompt and good."
"The solution's most valuable feature is that it has been quite helpful in our company, especially when it comes to applications needing updates frequently."
"We can see how much traffic can be downloaded on the portal."
"Scalability is 10 out of 10; there are no issues."
"The best feature of Amazon CloudFront is its simplified process and easy integration."
"The support team is knowledgeable."
"The solution is very easy to use."
"The tool is highly available and reliable. It helps to access server applications easily. Integrating Amazon CloudFront with other AWS services was very easy, I would rate it eight out of ten."
"CloudFront provides a common access point, manages routing to different methods, and serves as an access point plus API routing."
"It is stable."
"The most valuable feature is the number of servers they can put your content in while being reliable."
 

Cons

"The documentation could improve for Cloudflare DNS."
"Technical support is not well developed. While there are good engineers, Cloudflare does not offer hands-on technical support to fix customer problems but rather a self-service model."
"DNS Management."
"Sometimes their more advanced caching tools can cause higher first-byte times and problems with JavaScript."
"At the end, it is worth than giving your house keys to the NSA."
"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."
"I believe they currently have this feature, but there will most likely be integration with APIs so we can control some features through API."
"It should have easier documentation for the configuration. It's very technical and people who aren't technical should also be able to do the configuration."
"Their support is very slow. If you file a support ticket, it takes a long time before it gets resolved."
"I'd like to see improvements in log files and data visualizations within the interface."
"On the commercials and pricing based on the region, they might have to work a bit because sometimes we lose on commercials."
"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 solution can be improved by creating a communication pathway with technical engineers because when we open tickets, we have a delay in response times."
"Costing-wise and integration with other tools need improvement, especially API security."
"Akamai's configuration part is an area of concern where improvements are required to make the process easy."
"The product's scalability can be improved since certain shortcomings regarding the security part of the solution currently exist."
"The product could support any network load balancer. At present, we can use only Amazon’s load balancer application."
"The only issues we've faced were when AWS itself had problems, and that's very rare. I can only recall one instance when they had issues, but they managed to resolve it quickly."
"Amazon CloudFront can improve by accurately determining the latency of a non-defined URL that the solution encounters."
"Support needs to be enhanced."
"They could be expanding the number of locations available. It will help users easily access content."
"The pricing for Amazon CloudFront is quite expensive; I would rate it six if we use all edges. The price could be optimized."
"The solution could be more simplified for new users. It could be more user-friendly."
"Amazon CloudFront seems to have too many unnecessary products, which makes it cluttered."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."
"We are using the free tier of the solution."
"We are using the free version."
"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."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."
"I give the price a five out of ten."
"Quite high in price, but equivalent to other enterprise products on the market"
"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."
"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."
"The price of the solution depends upon its usage."
"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 Akamai could be less expensive."
"Akamai is an expensive tool. Moreover, we have a pay-as-you-go model for additional features."
"Amazon's pricing varies depending on the data transfer."
"The solution’s price is reasonable."
"Its price is really on the high side. It should be cheaper in general."
"I used to work with AWS and Azure, and we provided cost comparisons for customers to help them choose the right services. Azure tends to be more user-friendly and easier to understand, while AWS may take more time."
"Amazon CloudFront costs less than third-party services."
"The tool is affordable."
"I rate the product's pricing an eight out of ten. The licensing follows a pay-as-you-go model."
"I rate Amazon CloudFront's pricing a five out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

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 Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise17
 

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...
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...
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 Akamai?
Other solutions are probably easier to set up, but you have more capability in Akamai. It would be beneficial if they...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Akamai?
The pricing is good, with no complaints about costs, which is essential when deciding to have Akamai in your network.
How do I choose between AWS Global Accelerator and Amazon CloudFront?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon’s Web Service Global Accelerator or Amazon CloudFro...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon CloudFront?
I find Amazon's pricing good, rating it eight out of ten and considering it affordable and rightly placed, not expens...
What needs improvement with Amazon CloudFront?
Honestly, Amazon CloudFront does its job really well, but it doesn’t always feel easy to work with. The setup can be ...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
No data available
 

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.
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
Unilever, Spotify, Pinterest, MLB Advanced Media, Foursquare, PBS, Airbnb, Netflix, WIX, Comcast, Automobili Lamborghini, Rovio, Discovery Communications
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai vs. Amazon CloudFront and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.