Skip to content

CacheFly versus Lumen

Easily compare CacheFly and Lumen for POP locations, products, pricing, features & support. We hope this helps you better understand the similarities and differences between these content delivery networks.

CacheFly logo Lumen logo

Company

Company CacheFly Lumen
Short profile 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'. 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.

Products

Yes
Sort of/partially
No
Extra costs
Unknown
Product CacheFly Lumen
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? Ultra Low Latency Video Streaming CDN and/or CDN Mesh Delivery
Video on demandDelivery of on demand video VoD CDN and/or CDN Mesh Delivery
Image OptimizationAutomatic image transformation/compression/optimization Smart Image 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
Private CDNDedicated edge resources & custom configs Fully custom solution CDN Mesh Delivery for Enterprise
Edge ComputeRun your code on CDN edge servers Custom solutions available for edge scripting Edge Compute

Network

How many POP locations do CacheFly and Lumen have in different parts of the world?

Region CacheFly Lumen
North America 17 28
Latin America 18 11
Europe 16 35
Russia & CIS 0 0
Asia excl. China 7 7
China 2 0
Oceania 3 5
Middle East 5 4
Africa 1 3

Pricing

Pricing & contract duration CacheFly Lumen
Minimum contract term 1 month Unknown
Minimum monthly costs $0 (5 TB/m) Unknown
Requests costsCustomers pay for client to CDN requests No Unknown
Ingress costsCustomers pay for origin-to-CDN bytes transferred No Unknown
NA/EU traffic (low volume) $0.03 per GB Unknown
APAC traffic (low volume) $0.03 per GB Unknown
LATAM traffic (low volume) $0.03 per GB Unknown

Features

Yes
Sort of/partially
No
Extra costs
Unknown
Web acceleration CacheFly Lumen
Instant setupSign up, configure, start testing. Not yet, but coming soon.
Change propagation delayHow fast do config changes propagate to all POPs? 5 - 180s depending on the change No longer than 15 minutes - Often instant
Apex/root domain OK Blog: Root domain on CDN and performanceNo performance degradation when using http(s)://domain.com Must purchase dedicated IP
tooltip Or use DNS provider that can do CNAME flattening
Available with Section product for an additional fee
HTTP/2
HTTP/3
WebSockets
IPv6Do the edge servers have IPv6? Custom enablement
Compression CDN Guide: CompressionReduce file size for faster delivery Resend from origin Resend from origin, or compress on edge
Origin pull - protocolHTTP only or HTTPS possible too? HTTP and HTTPS
tooltip Match client to edge request protocol is possible
HTTP and HTTPS.
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 Configure specific other Host header
tooltip 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 or Cloud Storage can be enabled FTP, SFTP, rsync. Storage costs apply
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 Guide: Serve StaleCDN serves cached but expired content in case origin is in trouble CacheFly support team can activate this edge behaviour
Purge CDN Guide: PurgeInvalidate or delete cached objects on CDN Purge Speed Instant
Purge - capabilities Purge all and by directory, not by tag or header Purge all but not purge by directory or tag or header
Analytics Near real-time, lots of metrics
Log files Pull via FTP or have pushed with Log Streaming to customer endpoint
tooltip Logs are 5 minutes delayed
API Purge, analytics, configuration Purge, analytics, configuration
HTTPS & Content Protection CacheFly Lumen
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 CacheFly Lumen
Documentation Yes, public Yes, but not 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