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Akamai vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 21, 2025

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
7.1
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (12th)
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
F5 Distributed Cloud Services
Ranking in CDN
10th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.4
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (20th), API Security (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 21.1%, down from 21.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai is 16.4%, up from 14.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Distributed Cloud Services is 1.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CDN Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cloudflare21.1%
Akamai16.4%
F5 Distributed Cloud Services1.9%
Other60.6%
CDN
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch - PeerSpot reviewer
Fast and secure deployments simplify operations for government and fintech clients
It is a fast and secure DNS. It is very easy to deploy, and my customers are happy with this tool. Additionally, the CDN performance in Mexico is excellent, providing fast service and tools. It offers reliability during high-traffic periods, ensuring no impact on the environment. It helps my clients avoid using on-premise boxes, simplifying operations as they only use the prices on Cloudflare.
Aryan Singh1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers great enterprise support, ideal for solutions requiring high scalability and seamless integration with AWS infrastructure
For Akamai, it is definitely one of the best tools out there. However, there are challenges with how their approach is designed for large enterprises. 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. That's the biggest challenge we faced when migrating to Akamai from other solutions, like Cloudflare. It can be difficult to migrate between platforms. Due to its great features but high activation thresholds. So, while it's a powerful tool, it has limitations for some implementations. It was difficult to migrate from and to Akamai. It is challenging when we are building a website.
FM
Protects web applications with comprehensive security features
All features are valuable. In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation. This is a comprehensive package for web application security. The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a fast and secure DNS."
"Even when there is a high load on our servers, Cloudflare is able to cache the data and serve it to users, ensuring they can still access the website."
"The most valuable feature is its usability."
"The solution provides good load balancing and protection against DDoS attacks."
"Smaller businesses have seen great ROI due to the low investment and strong performance."
"The most valuable feature is its usability."
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is security."
"The tool is user-friendly."
"The worldwide reach of the Akamai CDN is one of the key values of this CDN and the agreements worldwide that they keep running."
"The solution's technical support is very prompt and good."
"Akamai is leveraged by many top-level businesses, ensuring reliability and support in case of outages or issues."
"We can see how much traffic can be downloaded on the portal."
"Akamai has a very established network of PoPs globally."
"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."
"This solution can be used for web , video and media caching and streaming."
"With 300 servers deployed worldwide, it's highly scalable and is the best web application firewall on the market."
"F5 is known for being the best load balancer in the market. Customers with an existing module can easily adopt additional modules without investing in new hardware."
"The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation."
"In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation."
 

Cons

"Technical support is lacking."
"There could be more courses with engineers. I like e-learning, however, having a specialist in a classroom is more comfortable for me."
"Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to buy Cloudflare in my country."
"The tool needs to improve caching of servers. The product needs to include PFX certificate as well."
"An integrated SSO feature would be useful for Cloudflare DNS."
"The documentation could improve for Cloudflare DNS."
"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 pricing could be improved."
"When we open tickets, we have a delay in response times."
"The solution could offer more integrations."
"Costing-wise and integration with other tools need improvement, especially API security."
"On the commercials and pricing based on the region, they might have to work a bit because sometimes we lose on commercials."
"It would be better if we could be notified about specific attacks."
"One area for improvement with Akamai could be pricing."
"After three or four months from this perspective, I don’t know all the features on the platform yet, so I am still learning about it."
"The fact that it is an expensive product is its only shortcoming."
"The pricing could be adjusted to better meet the needs of typical customers in regions like Poland, where the product is considered too expensive."
"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF. There are some problems, mainly from the perspective of implementation and customer expectations, which sometimes differ from reality."
"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"A free version of the solution is available."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"We are using the free version."
"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."
"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."
"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."
"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."
"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"Quite high in price, but equivalent to other enterprise products on the market"
"The solution can be one of the more expensive options, reflecting their established market position."
"The solution's pricing is based on bandwidth."
"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."
"Price-wise, I find Akamai's pricing model's inclination to be more towards the expensive side of the spectrum, though I can't say that it is a very expensive product."
"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."
"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."
Information not available
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Comparison Review

it_user69348 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 17, 2013
Akamai vs. CloudFlare – Simple Stats
In the world of CDNs Akamai is the incumbent 500 pound gorilla, no question. They have a HUGE global presence, super solid technology and networks, and have the most experience with large enterprise clients. However, now there other strong players in the CDN market. One of the most…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Insurance Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise14
No data available
 

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 do you like most about Cloudflare?
Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.
What do you like most about Akamai?
The most valuable feature in managing web traffic has been the ability to handle vertical scaling effectively.
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 F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
I am not involved in sales, so I do not deal with the pricing aspect directly. I give the cost of the solution a four...
What needs improvement with F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
It's a long way to be perfect, of course, as with all solutions. The main issue is integration with other parts or pr...
What is your primary use case for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
There are two main use cases for Distributed Call Services: DDoS or Distributed attacks protection and WAF web applic...
 

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
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Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai vs. F5 Distributed Cloud Services and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,759 professionals have used our research since 2012.