Easily compare Akamai and Medianova 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 | Medianova |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | Medianova has grown to become a global, established player with a strong presence in the Middle East and Europe. Medianova uses modern technologies like their patent pending Dockerized CDN Platform, BBR, Brotli and Anycast and offers a wide range of content delivery solutions from their 50+ data centers. |
Products
| Product | Akamai | Medianova |
|---|---|---|
| Dynamic content deliveryNon-cacheable content delivery. User login, shopping cart ... | Dynamic Site Accelerator | Dynamic Site Acceleration |
| Small file deliveryStatic object delivery; caching of small files (file size <1 MB) | Ion | Content Delivery and Optimization |
| 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 | Internet Live Streaming |
| Video on demandDelivery of on demand video | Video on Demand | |
| Image OptimizationAutomatic image transformation/compression/optimization | Image & Video Manager | Image Optimization |
| DNSAuthoritative DNS for customer domain | Edge DNS | |
| WAFWeb Application Firewall | Web Application Protector | WAF |
| Anti-DDoSDDoS attack protection. Specific product(s) for this. | Kona DDoS Defender | |
| 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 Medianova have in different parts of the world?
| Region | Akamai | Medianova |
|---|---|---|
| North America | ? | 9 |
| Latin America | ? | 1 |
| Europe | ? | 11 |
| Russia & CIS | ? | 1 |
| Asia excl. China | ? | 1 |
| China | ? | 0 |
| Oceania | ? | 0 |
| Middle East | ? | 7 |
| Africa | ? | 1 |
Pricing
| Pricing & contract duration | Akamai | Medianova |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum contract term | 12 months | 1 month |
| Minimum monthly costs | Unknown | Varies by product and service |
| Requests costsCustomers pay for client to CDN requests | Unknown | Unknown |
| Ingress costsCustomers pay for origin-to-CDN bytes transferred | Unknown | Unknown |
| NA/EU traffic (low volume) | Unknown | Confidential, market competitive |
| APAC traffic (low volume) | Unknown | Confidential, market competitive |
| LATAM traffic (low volume) | Unknown | Not applicable |
Features
| Web acceleration | Akamai | Medianova |
|---|---|---|
| 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? | One to three minutes | |
Apex/root domain OK  No performance degradation when using http(s)://domain.com |
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? | ||
| Compression Reduce file size for faster delivery |
Resend from origin, or compress on edge | Compress on the fly. Brotli support! |
| Origin pull - protocolHTTP only or HTTPS possible too? | HTTP and HTTPS | HTTP and HTTPS |
| Origin pull - Host headerUse client > edge value? Set specific value? | Can be different from origin host | |
| 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, SFTP, Rsync | |
| Cache control - CDN caching | ||
| Cache control - client caching | ||
| Serve Stale CDN serves cached but expired content in case origin is in trouble |
Cache-Control extensions support | |
| Purge Invalidate or delete cached objects on CDN |
Instant. Purge all may take up to 1 minute | |
| Purge - capabilities | Purge file paths, purge all | |
| Analytics | Near real-time | |
| Log files | Not by default, only on request | |
| API | Purge, analytics, configuration, encoding |
| HTTPS & Content Protection | Akamai | Medianova |
|---|---|---|
| CDN domain HTTPSUse the CDN's domain, like cloudfront.net | Free (not SNI) | |
| Customer domain HTTPSYour domain in the CDN's certificate | ||
| Customer cert HTTPSYour certificate on the CDN | SNI | |
| Token authentication | ||
| Geo blocking | Streaming | |
| Hotlink protectionThird parties cannot deeplink to your content | Streaming | |
| Basic authenticationUser logs in on the CDN to get content | ||
| IP white/blacklisting | Streaming |
Support
| Customer support | Akamai | Medianova |
|---|---|---|
| Documentation | Akamai techdocs | Yes, public |
| Humans | All customers get 24/7 email support with 3 minutes response time and access to Technical Account Managers |