Easily compare BelugaCDN 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 | BelugaCDN | Akamai |
---|---|---|
Short profile | BelugaCDN launched their services in 2015 and is a pay-as-you-go, low-cost CDN provider. They have a full-featured IPv4+IPv6 network and POPs on 5 continents. | 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 | BelugaCDN | 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? | Only delivery of the HTTP video streams, no transcoding or transmuxing | Adaptive Media Delivery |
Video on demandDelivery of on demand video | Pseudo-streaming (progressive streaming), byte range requests support | |
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 | |
Private CDNDedicated edge resources & custom configs | Available upon request. Extra costs apply | |
Edge ComputeRun your code on CDN edge servers | EdgeWorkers |
Network
How many POP locations do BelugaCDN and Akamai have in different parts of the world?
Region | BelugaCDN | Akamai |
---|---|---|
North America | 13 | ? |
Latin America | 1 | ? |
Europe | 4 | ? |
Russia & CIS | 0 | ? |
Asia excl. China | 5 | ? |
China | 0 | ? |
Oceania | 1 | ? |
Middle East | 0 | ? |
Africa | 0 | ? |
Pricing
Pricing & contract duration | BelugaCDN | Akamai |
---|---|---|
Minimum contract term | None | 12 months |
Minimum monthly costs | $5 | Unknown |
Requests costsCustomers pay for client to CDN requests | 5000 requests per GB included. Overages $0.0035 per 10k requests | Unknown |
Ingress costsCustomers pay for origin-to-CDN bytes transferred | None | Unknown |
NA/EU traffic (low volume) | $0.01 per GB | Unknown |
APAC traffic (low volume) | Unknown | Unknown |
LATAM traffic (low volume) | Unknown | Unknown |
Features
Web acceleration | BelugaCDN | 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? | Often instant, sometimes a few minutes | |
Apex/root domain OK No performance degradation when using http(s)://domain.com | Global Anycasted IP available, but Beluga recommends against it | 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 | Compress on the fly | Resend from origin, or compress on 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 | Available upon request | |
Waiting RoomDuring peak traffic, route users to a virtual waiting room | Virtual Waiting Room | |
Push / uploadStore your content directly on CDN, no customer origin | Available upon request | |
Cache control - CDN caching | Honor origin sent headers or configure overrides | |
Cache control - client caching | ||
Serve Stale CDN serves cached but expired content in case origin is in trouble | ||
Purge Invalidate or delete cached objects on CDN | Instant | |
Purge - capabilities | Purge all and purge using regex | |
Analytics | All metrics are aggregated every 10 seconds, exported in real-time | |
Log files |
Real-time export to Elastic Search or Redis. FTP.
10 million requests/month free, $0.50/million events exported overage
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|
API | Purge, analytics, configuration |
HTTPS & Content Protection | BelugaCDN | Akamai |
---|---|---|
CDN domain HTTPSUse the CDN's domain, like cloudfront.net | ||
Customer domain HTTPSYour domain in the CDN's certificate | ||
Customer cert HTTPSYour certificate on the CDN |
Free (SNI)
TLS support includes full TLS Dynamic Record Sizing and ECDSA support per Q1 2017
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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 | BelugaCDN | Akamai |
---|---|---|
Documentation | Yes, public | Akamai techdocs |
Humans | Basic support (setup & troubleshooting: M-F, 9AM-5PM EST) is included for all accounts. Platinum (monthly spend more than $500) accounts receive priority. Enterprise customers receive phone support (w/ custom SLA). |