Easily compare Lumen and Leaseweb 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 | Lumen | Leaseweb |
|---|---|---|
| Short profile | Lumen (formerly known as Centurylink or Level 3) owns and operates a global Tier-1 network and - logically - their CDN runs on top of it. Lumen CDN has POPs on many continents and their product focus is on video, large object delivery and edge computing. | Leaseweb has been an established player in the (enterprise) hosting market for many years and launched their CDN mid 2013. Leaseweb claims 'the most competitive price in the CDN market' and has a reseller program. |
Products
| Product | Lumen | Leaseweb |
|---|---|---|
| Dynamic content deliveryNon-cacheable content delivery. User login, shopping cart ... | CDN Edge Compute | |
| Small file deliveryStatic object delivery; caching of small files (file size <1 MB) | CDN and/or CDN Edge Compute | |
| Large file deliveryStatic object delivery; caching of large files (file size >1 MB) | ||
| Live videoDelivery of live video. RTMP? Transcoding/transmuxing? | CDN and/or CDN Mesh Delivery | |
| Video on demandDelivery of on demand video | CDN and/or CDN Mesh Delivery | |
| Image OptimizationAutomatic image transformation/compression/optimization | part of CDN Edge Compute | |
| DNSAuthoritative DNS for customer domain | ||
| WAFWeb Application Firewall | WAF | |
| Anti-DDoSDDoS attack protection. Specific product(s) for this. | Lumen DDoS Hyper (on-demand) and DDoS Mitigation Service | DDoS IP Protection |
| Private CDNDedicated edge resources & custom configs | CDN Mesh Delivery for Enterprise | Private CDN |
| Edge ComputeRun your code on CDN edge servers | Edge Compute |
Network
How many POP locations do Lumen and Leaseweb have in different parts of the world?
| Region | Lumen | Leaseweb |
|---|---|---|
| North America | 28 | 6 |
| Latin America | 11 | 0 |
| Europe | 35 | 6 |
| Russia & CIS | 0 | 0 |
| Asia excl. China | 7 | 2 |
| China | 0 | 0 |
| Oceania | 5 | 0 |
| Middle East | 4 | 0 |
| Africa | 3 | 0 |
Pricing
| Pricing & contract duration | Lumen | Leaseweb |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum contract term | Unknown | One month |
| Minimum monthly costs | Unknown | $49 |
| Requests costsCustomers pay for client to CDN requests | Unknown | None |
| Ingress costsCustomers pay for origin-to-CDN bytes transferred | Unknown | None |
| NA/EU traffic (low volume) | Unknown | $0.06 per GB |
| APAC traffic (low volume) | Unknown | $0.06 per GB |
| LATAM traffic (low volume) | Unknown | $0.06 per GB |
Features
| Web acceleration | Lumen | Leaseweb |
|---|---|---|
| Instant setupSign up, configure, start testing. | Not yet, but coming soon. | Leaseweb needs 1 business day to get you started |
| Change propagation delayHow fast do config changes propagate to all POPs? | No longer than 15 minutes - Often instant | Instant |
Apex/root domain OK  No performance degradation when using http(s)://domain.com |
Available with Section product for an additional fee | No global Anycast |
| HTTP/2 | ||
| HTTP/3 | ||
| WebSockets | ||
| IPv6Do the edge servers have IPv6? | ||
| Compression Reduce file size for faster delivery |
Resend from origin, or compress on edge | Resend from origin or compress on the edge |
| Origin pull - protocolHTTP only or HTTPS possible too? | HTTP and HTTPS. | HTTP and HTTPS |
| Origin pull - Host headerUse client > edge value? Set specific value? |
Configure specific other Host header
CDN can also forward client request Host header to origin
|
|
| Origin ShieldOne POP pulls from origin, other POPs pull from the shield POP | ||
| Waiting RoomDuring peak traffic, route users to a virtual waiting room | ||
| Push / uploadStore your content directly on CDN, no customer origin | FTP, SFTP, rsync. Storage costs apply | |
| Cache control - CDN caching | Can set max-age override and set 404 caching TTL | |
| Cache control - client caching | ||
| Serve Stale CDN serves cached but expired content in case origin is in trouble |
CDN serves cached if origin is down | |
| Purge Invalidate or delete cached objects on CDN |
Instant | Instant most of the time |
| Purge - capabilities | Purge all but not purge by directory or tag or header | Purge per file and purge all |
| Analytics | Bandwidth, geo distribution and more | |
| Log files | One hour delay. Fetch via FTP | |
| API | Purge, analytics, configuration | Purge, analytics, configuration |
| HTTPS & Content Protection | Lumen | Leaseweb |
|---|---|---|
| CDN domain HTTPSUse the CDN's domain, like cloudfront.net | Free. SNI | |
| Customer domain HTTPSYour domain in the CDN's certificate | ||
| Customer cert HTTPSYour certificate on the CDN | Free. SNI | |
| Token authentication | ||
| Geo blocking | ||
| Hotlink protectionThird parties cannot deeplink to your content | ||
| Basic authenticationUser logs in on the CDN to get content | ||
| IP white/blacklisting |
Support
| Customer support | Lumen | Leaseweb |
|---|---|---|
| Documentation | Yes, but not public | Yes, public KB |
| Humans | 24/7 personal support via telephone and email. |