Easily compare Akamai 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 | Akamai | Leaseweb |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | 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 | Akamai | Leaseweb |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | |
| Video on demandDelivery of on demand video | ||
| Image OptimizationAutomatic image transformation/compression/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 | DDoS IP Protection |
| Private CDNDedicated edge resources & custom configs | Private CDN | |
| Edge ComputeRun your code on CDN edge servers | EdgeWorkers |
Network
How many POP locations do Akamai and Leaseweb have in different parts of the world?
| Region | Akamai | Leaseweb |
|---|---|---|
| North America | ? | 6 |
| Latin America | ? | 0 |
| Europe | ? | 6 |
| Russia & CIS | ? | 0 |
| Asia excl. China | ? | 2 |
| China | ? | 0 |
| Oceania | ? | 0 |
| Middle East | ? | 0 |
| Africa | ? | 0 |
Pricing
| Pricing & contract duration | Akamai | Leaseweb |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum contract term | 12 months | 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 | Akamai | Leaseweb |
|---|---|---|
| Instant setupSign up, configure, start testing. | Can't sign up and get started. Must talk to sales. | Leaseweb needs 1 business day to get you started |
| Change propagation delayHow fast do config changes propagate to all POPs? | Instant | |
Apex/root domain OK  No performance degradation when using http(s)://domain.com |
If you also use their Fast DNS for your domain | No global Anycast |
| HTTP/2 | ||
| HTTP/3 | HTTP/3 announcement | |
| WebSockets | WebSockets docs | |
| 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? | ||
| 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 | ||
| 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 most of the time | |
| Purge - capabilities | Purge per file and purge all | |
| Analytics | Bandwidth, geo distribution and more | |
| Log files | One hour delay. Fetch via FTP | |
| API | Purge, analytics, configuration |
| HTTPS & Content Protection | Akamai | 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 | Akamai | Leaseweb |
|---|---|---|
| Documentation | Akamai techdocs | Yes, public KB |
| Humans | 24/7 personal support via telephone and email. |