Easily compare CloudFront 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 | CloudFront | Akamai |
|---|---|---|
| Short profile | CloudFront is the CDN of AWS (Amazon Web Services), the world's largest cloud services provider. CloudFront offers a mature set of content delivery products and has a big network of POPs on many continents. Solid documentation and APIs make CloudFront a developer-friendly CDN. | 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 | CloudFront | Akamai |
|---|---|---|
| Dynamic content deliveryNon-cacheable content delivery. User login, shopping cart ... | Dynamic Content Delivery | 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? | Streaming Media | Adaptive Media Delivery |
| Video on demandDelivery of on demand video | ||
| Image OptimizationAutomatic image transformation/compression/optimization | Image & Video Manager | |
| DNSAuthoritative DNS for customer domain | AWS Route53 | Edge DNS |
| WAFWeb Application Firewall | AWS WAF | Web Application Protector |
| Anti-DDoSDDoS attack protection. Specific product(s) for this. | AWS Shield | Kona DDoS Defender |
| Private CDNDedicated edge resources & custom configs | ||
| Edge ComputeRun your code on CDN edge servers | Lambda@Edge | EdgeWorkers |
Network
How many POP locations do CloudFront and Akamai have in different parts of the world?
| Region | CloudFront | Akamai |
|---|---|---|
| North America | 19 | ? |
| Latin America | 7 | ? |
| Europe | 31 | ? |
| Russia & CIS | 0 | ? |
| Asia excl. China | 18 | ? |
| China | 4 | ? |
| Oceania | 5 | ? |
| Middle East | 5 | ? |
| Africa | 4 | ? |
Pricing
| Pricing & contract duration | CloudFront | Akamai |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum contract term | None | 12 months |
| Minimum monthly costs | None | Unknown |
| Requests costsCustomers pay for client to CDN requests | $0.0075 - $0.022 per 10k requests | Unknown |
| Ingress costsCustomers pay for origin-to-CDN bytes transferred | $0.02 - $0.16 per GB (free if origin is AWS) | Unknown |
| NA/EU traffic (low volume) | $0.085 per GB | Unknown |
| APAC traffic (low volume) | $0.12 per GB (India: $0.109) | Unknown |
| LATAM traffic (low volume) | $0.11 per GB | Unknown |
Features
| Web acceleration | CloudFront | 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? | ~10 minutes | |
Apex/root domain OK  No performance degradation when using http(s)://domain.com |
Only if used together with AWS Route53 | If you also use their Fast DNS for your domain |
| HTTP/2 | HTTP/2 announcement (Sep 2016) | |
| HTTP/3 | HTTP/3 announcement | HTTP/3 announcement |
| WebSockets | Using WebSockets with CloudFront distributions | WebSockets docs |
| IPv6Do the edge servers have IPv6? | IPv6 support announcement (Oct 2016) | |
| Compression Reduce file size for faster delivery |
Resend from origin, or compress on edge
CloudFront can compress many content types on the edge and supports Brotli
|
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? | Can't configure specific other Host header | |
| Origin ShieldOne POP pulls from origin, other POPs pull from the shield POP | Origin Shield docs | |
| Waiting RoomDuring peak traffic, route users to a virtual waiting room | Virtual Waiting Room on AWS | Virtual Waiting Room |
| Push / uploadStore your content directly on CDN, no customer origin | ||
| Cache control - CDN caching | ||
| Cache control - client caching | ||
| Serve Stale CDN serves cached but expired content in case origin is in trouble |
Supports Cache-Control extensions | |
| Purge Invalidate or delete cached objects on CDN |
Purge Speed | |
| Purge - capabilities | Purge all and by directory/file type (wildcards) | |
| Analytics | Amazon CloudFront Reports & Analytics | |
| Log files |
Only delivered to S3
CloudFront delivers access logs for a distribution up to several times an hour
|
|
| API | Purge, analytics, configuration |
| HTTPS & Content Protection | CloudFront | Akamai |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | Free (SNI) or $600/m for non-SNI | |
| Token authentication | Serving Private Content through CloudFront | |
| Geo blocking | Restricting the Geographic Distribution of Your Content | |
| Hotlink protectionThird parties cannot deeplink to your content | Use AWS WAF for Referer Checking | |
| Basic authenticationUser logs in on the CDN to get content | ||
| IP white/blacklisting | Use AWS WAF to Block IP Addresses |
Support
| Customer support | CloudFront | Akamai |
|---|---|---|
| Documentation | Yes, public. API docs | Akamai techdocs |
| Humans | Community support is free. Email and phone support (AWS Support) available at extra costs |