Easily compare CacheFly and Akamai for POP locations, products, pricing, features & support. We hope this helps you better understand the similarities and differences between these content delivery networks.
Company
| Company | CacheFly | Akamai |
|---|---|---|
| Short profile | Launched in 2002, CacheFly developed the world's first TCP-anycast based content delivery network. CacheFly has a focus on optimizing the CDN for throughput and has steadily built out the network to now have 50+ POPs on 6 continents. CacheFly provides a 100% uptime SLA and takes pride in acting as 'consultants to our customers'. | Akamai is one of the oldest CDNs and generally considered to be the largest global CDN. They have 'servers everywhere' and a wide range of products and services. The company is actively involved in Let's Encrypt and is pushing HTTP/2 adoption. |
Products
| Product | CacheFly | Akamai |
|---|---|---|
| Dynamic content deliveryNon-cacheable content delivery. User login, shopping cart ... | Dynamic Site Accelerator | |
| Small file deliveryStatic object delivery; caching of small files (file size <1 MB) | Ion | |
| Large file deliveryStatic object delivery; caching of large files (file size >1 MB) | Download Delivery | |
| Live videoDelivery of live video. RTMP? Transcoding/transmuxing? | Ultra Low Latency Video Streaming | Adaptive Media Delivery |
| Video on demandDelivery of on demand video | VoD | |
| Image OptimizationAutomatic image transformation/compression/optimization | Smart Image Optimization | Image & Video Manager |
| DNSAuthoritative DNS for customer domain | Edge DNS | |
| WAFWeb Application Firewall | Web Application Protector | |
| Anti-DDoSDDoS attack protection. Specific product(s) for this. | Kona DDoS Defender | |
| Private CDNDedicated edge resources & custom configs | Fully custom solution | |
| Edge ComputeRun your code on CDN edge servers | Custom solutions available for edge scripting | EdgeWorkers |
Network
How many POP locations do CacheFly and Akamai have in different parts of the world?
| Region | CacheFly | Akamai |
|---|---|---|
| North America | 17 | ? |
| Latin America | 18 | ? |
| Europe | 16 | ? |
| Russia & CIS | 0 | ? |
| Asia excl. China | 7 | ? |
| China | 2 | ? |
| Oceania | 3 | ? |
| Middle East | 5 | ? |
| Africa | 1 | ? |
Pricing
| Pricing & contract duration | CacheFly | Akamai |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum contract term | 1 month | 12 months |
| Minimum monthly costs | $0 (5 TB/m) | Unknown |
| Requests costsCustomers pay for client to CDN requests | No | Unknown |
| Ingress costsCustomers pay for origin-to-CDN bytes transferred | No | Unknown |
| NA/EU traffic (low volume) | $0.03 per GB | Unknown |
| APAC traffic (low volume) | $0.03 per GB | Unknown |
| LATAM traffic (low volume) | $0.03 per GB | Unknown |
Features
| Web acceleration | CacheFly | Akamai |
|---|---|---|
| Instant setupSign up, configure, start testing. | Can't sign up and get started. Must talk to sales. | |
| Change propagation delayHow fast do config changes propagate to all POPs? | 5 - 180s depending on the change | |
Apex/root domain OK  No performance degradation when using http(s)://domain.com |
Must purchase dedicated IP
Or use DNS provider that can do CNAME flattening
|
If you also use their Fast DNS for your domain |
| HTTP/2 | ||
| HTTP/3 | HTTP/3 announcement | |
| WebSockets | WebSockets docs | |
| IPv6Do the edge servers have IPv6? | Custom enablement | |
| Compression Reduce file size for faster delivery |
Resend from origin | Resend from origin, or compress on edge |
| Origin pull - protocolHTTP only or HTTPS possible too? |
HTTP and HTTPS
Match client to edge request protocol is possible
|
HTTP and HTTPS |
| Origin pull - Host headerUse client > edge value? Set specific value? | Set specific Host header value or forward value from client to edge request. Support for AWS Origin Secret Key Header | |
| Origin ShieldOne POP pulls from origin, other POPs pull from the shield POP | ||
| Waiting RoomDuring peak traffic, route users to a virtual waiting room | Virtual Waiting Room | |
| Push / uploadStore your content directly on CDN, no customer origin | FTP or Cloud Storage can be enabled | |
| Cache control - CDN caching | Origin headers are honored. Can config caching overrides | |
| Cache control - client caching | Origin headers are forwarded to client. Can config overrides | |
| Serve Stale CDN serves cached but expired content in case origin is in trouble |
CacheFly support team can activate this edge behaviour | |
| Purge Invalidate or delete cached objects on CDN |
Purge Speed | |
| Purge - capabilities | Purge all and by directory, not by tag or header | |
| Analytics | Near real-time, lots of metrics | |
| Log files |
Pull via FTP or have pushed with Log Streaming to customer endpoint
Logs are 5 minutes delayed
|
|
| API | Purge, analytics, configuration |
| HTTPS & Content Protection | CacheFly | Akamai |
|---|---|---|
| CDN domain HTTPSUse the CDN's domain, like cloudfront.net | Free | |
| Customer domain HTTPSYour domain in the CDN's certificate | ||
| Customer cert HTTPSYour certificate on the CDN | Upload your own Certificate or Include Automatic Certificate | |
| Token authentication | Self-service activation/configuration | |
| Geo blocking | Self-service activation/configuration. Predefined and custom rules | |
| Hotlink protectionThird parties cannot deeplink to your content | ||
| Basic authenticationUser logs in on the CDN to get content | Available in a Custom/Private CDN scenario | |
| IP white/blacklisting | Custom rules can be scripted (by support team at no extra charge) |
Support
| Customer support | CacheFly | Akamai |
|---|---|---|
| Documentation | Yes, public | Akamai techdocs |
| Humans | All customers get 24/7 email and phone support and a dedicated implementation/solutions engineer. Extra support ('Elite managed') available at a fee with SLA for support response time |