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Akamai vs StackPath CDN comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 (3rd), Managed DNS (1st), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (5th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (18th)
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
StackPath CDN
Ranking in CDN
15th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
9.3
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 16.4%, down from 21.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai is 12.6%, down from 16.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StackPath CDN is 2.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CDN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cloudflare16.4%
Akamai12.6%
StackPath CDN2.6%
Other68.4%
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.
it_user253797 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Consultant, Business Owner, Lecturer at a tech consulting company with 10,001+ employees
​We had some issues with errors popping up here and there on our Drupal log, but it improved the downloading of static content for our websites.
We had some issues with errors popping up here and there on our Drupal log, but nothing serious. One minor issue was that when we decided to stop using MaxCDN, since all images on our site were converted to links to MaxCDN, sites linking to our images (including Google) would have an issue. For that reason, generally it is better to chose a CDN that is activated just by changing your name servers rather than using a module on your site.

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."
"This solution has improved the security of our organization."
"CloudFlare's caching brings the load speed down from 4.32 seconds to 2.45 seconds."
"I have not had a DDOS attack since, or at least not become unavailable due to DDOS which means my ROI is pretty good."
"The solution is stable, and the DNS servers are simple to use."
"Using the CDN of Cloudflare improved the speed significantly, reducing the page loading times to appropriate levels."
"There are key things that are used for our enterprise customers, such as Lambda and DNS."
"It is easier to configure and develop documentation to see how we have configured firewalls."
"The solution's technical support is very good...The installation phase of Akamai was easy."
"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."
"Akamai support is excellent because they have great debugging tools, and they are highly competent, with proactive and responsive engineers whenever we have issues, so everything is pretty smooth."
"Our primary use case for this solution is data transfer, and we deploy the solution on private cloud."
"The stability and efficiency of Akamai have enhanced our network's performance significantly."
"This solution can be used for web , video and media caching and streaming."
"We have received excellent support from their team; I have not worked with any other applications where they have delivered professional services as good as them."
"It's beneficial since it's one of the best solutions in the world for CDN."
"MaxCDN improved the downloading of static content for our websites, and with multiple nodes all over the world it significantly improved the user experience."
 

Cons

"The installation was complex until I learned what I had to learn."
"I have found CloudFlare's support to be unresponsive at times, and not very helpful with providing technical details for issues that we have reported over the years."
"It would be good if Cloudflare could have more servers for better traffic routing or an increase in the traffic routed."
"Perhaps I would ask that they improve the Free plan and allow us to use it with any TLD (certain ones are not allowed)."
"There are some issues with the CDN services."
"Yes, there were a few times when some of their CDN nodes would fail, creating serious speed issues with the site without any warning or notification from their side."
"There could be more courses with engineers. I like e-learning, however, having a specialist in a classroom is more comfortable for me."
"The pricing could be improved."
"When we open tickets, we have a delay in response times."
"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."
"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."
"I'd like to see more Web 3.0 and IoT solutions."
"The solution could offer more integrations."
"I'd like to see improvements in log files and data visualizations within the interface."
"I'd like to see more Web 3.0 and IoT solutions."
"We had some issues with errors popping up here and there on our Drupal log, but nothing serious."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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 solution has many features but there are ones that you need to pay for. Sometimes you have to find out which is available for free and which you have to pay for."
"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."
"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"I give the price a five out of ten."
"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"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."
"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."
"The price of Akamai could be less expensive."
"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."
"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 solution's pricing is based on bandwidth."
Information not available
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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
16%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Retailer
5%
No data available
 

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
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare?
The tool's pricing is moderate. I rate the product’s pricing a five out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expens...
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.
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Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
NetDNA, MaxCDN
 

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
The Next Web, Moot Inc., TemplateMonster, BuySellAds, WebPageTest, WP Engine, jQuery Foundation, WPBeginner, Yoast.com, Gittip LLC
Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare, Imperva, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in CDN. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.