Akamai vs Cloudflare
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Akamai and Cloudflare.
Quick Verdict
4.1/5
Akamai
0 reviews
4.3/5
Cloudflare
0 reviews
Cloudflare is rated higher (4.3 vs 4.1). Akamai invented the CDN industry in 1998. 340,000+ servers in 130+ countries. Enterprise CDN, edge security, and media delivery at massive scale. Acquired Linode for cloud compute. Global network that speeds up and protects websites with CDN caching, DDoS protection, free SSL and DNS. Free plan; Pro costs $20/month billed annually ($25 monthly).
 Akamai The original CDN — 4,400+ edge PoPs across 130+ countries | Cloudflare Global CDN and DDoS protection with object storage | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 4.1 (0 reviews) | 4.3 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | paid | freemium |
| Starting price | Free tier available | From $20/mo |
| Best for | Global media and streaming platforms, gaming backends, and attack-prone enterprises that need the largest edge footprint and top-tier DDoS scrubbing under enterprise contracts | Websites and SaaS front ends that want a free or flat-priced global CDN with DDoS protection and TLS included — and can accept proxying all traffic through one vendor. |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ||
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ✓ | |
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | — | Global — 300+ cities |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | ddos protectioneu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenter | free tiers3 compatibleddos protectioneu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenterapi accessipv6terraform provider |
| Visit Akamai → | Visit Cloudflare → | |
Akamai
Pros
- + Unmatched edge reach: 4,400+ PoPs across 130+ countries and 1,200+ networks
- + Prolexic DDoS scrubbing is the industry reference: 20+ Tbps dedicated capacity, zero-second mitigation, 100% platform availability SLA
- + Two decades-plus of delivery track record at the largest media and event scale
- + Aggressive egress pricing on the Akamai Cloud compute side, inherited from the Linode acquisition
- + Edge compute (EdgeWorkers, Functions) plus core and distributed compute regions under one network
Cons
- - No public pricing — quote-based enterprise procurement with real sales-cycle overhead
- - Not an option for individuals, small businesses, or anyone who wants self-serve onboarding
- - Dense, modular product catalog that is easy to over-buy or misconfigure
- - Volume commitments can make traffic overruns expensive
- - Compute breadth is thin compared with AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud
Cloudflare
Pros
- + Unmetered bandwidth and requests on every plan, including Free
- + Free managed WAF ruleset, Universal SSL and unmetered DDoS protection by default
- + 330+ city network with Anycast routing and no region pricing
- + Flat per-domain pricing is easy to budget; no egress surprises
- + Terraform provider and full API for configuration as code
Cons
- - No uptime SLA below the Business plan
- - Per-domain billing gets expensive for domain portfolios
- - Advanced WAF tuning and rate limiting are plan-gated
- - Proxy architecture is a concentration risk during network-level incidents
- - Large feature surface means caching misconfigurations can go unnoticed
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