Easily compare Akamai and CacheFly 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 | Akamai | CacheFly |
---|---|---|
Short profile | 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. | 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'. |
Products
Product | Akamai | CacheFly |
---|---|---|
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? | Adaptive Media Delivery | Ultra Low Latency Video Streaming |
Video on demandDelivery of on demand video | VoD | |
Image OptimizationAutomatic image transformation/compression/optimization | Image & Video Manager | Smart Image Optimization |
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 | EdgeWorkers | Custom solutions available for edge scripting |
Network
How many POP locations do Akamai and CacheFly have in different parts of the world?
Region | Akamai | CacheFly |
---|---|---|
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 | Akamai | CacheFly |
---|---|---|
Minimum contract term | 12 months | 1 month |
Minimum monthly costs | Unknown | $0 (5 TB/m) |
Requests costsCustomers pay for client to CDN requests | Unknown | No |
Ingress costsCustomers pay for origin-to-CDN bytes transferred | Unknown | No |
NA/EU traffic (low volume) | Unknown | $0.03 per GB |
APAC traffic (low volume) | Unknown | $0.03 per GB |
LATAM traffic (low volume) | Unknown | $0.03 per GB |
Features
Web acceleration | Akamai | CacheFly |
---|---|---|
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 | If you also use their Fast DNS for your domain |
Must purchase dedicated IP
Or use DNS provider that can do CNAME flattening
|
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, or compress on edge | Resend from origin |
Origin pull - protocolHTTP only or HTTPS possible too? | HTTP and HTTPS |
HTTP and HTTPS
Match client to edge request protocol is possible
|
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 | Akamai | CacheFly |
---|---|---|
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 | Akamai | CacheFly |
---|---|---|
Documentation | Akamai techdocs | Yes, public |
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 |