Easily compare Limelight and BelugaCDN 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 | Limelight | BelugaCDN |
|---|---|---|
| Short profile | Limelight (NASDAQ: LLNW) has been a strong player in the CDN market since 2001. Limelight has a large, high-capacity network with POPs on many continents and offers digital content delivery, live and on-demand video, cloud security and edge computing services. | 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. |
Products
| Product | Limelight | BelugaCDN |
|---|---|---|
| Dynamic content deliveryNon-cacheable content delivery. User login, shopping cart ... |
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| Small file deliveryStatic object delivery; caching of small files (file size <1 MB) |
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| Large file deliveryStatic object delivery; caching of large files (file size >1 MB) |
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| Live videoDelivery of live video. RTMP? Transcoding/transmuxing? |
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| Video on demandDelivery of on demand video |
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| Image OptimizationAutomatic image compression/optimization |
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| DNSAuthoritative DNS for customer domain |
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| WAFWeb Application Firewall |
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| Anti-DDoSDDoS attack protection. Specific product(s) for this. |
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| Private CDNDedicated edge resources & custom configs |
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Network
| Region | Limelight | BelugaCDN |
|---|---|---|
| North America | 17 | 14 |
| Latin America | 9 | 1 |
| Europe | 12 | 3 |
| Russia & CIS | 0 | 0 |
| Asia, excl China | 16 | 5 |
| China | 10 | 0 |
| Oceania | 1 | 1 |
| Middle-East | 4 | 0 |
| Africa | 2 | 0 |
Pricing
| Pricing & contract duration | Limelight | BelugaCDN |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum contract term | 12 months | None |
| Minimum monthly costs | Varies by product and service | $5 |
| Requests costsCustomers pay for client to CDN requests | None | 5000 requests per GB included. Overages $0.0035 per 10k requests |
| Ingress costsCustomers pay for origin-to-CDN bytes transferred | Yes | None |
| NA/EU traffic (low volume) | Confidential, market competitive | $0.01 per GB |
| APAC traffic (low volume) | Confidential, market competitive | Unknown |
| LATAM traffic (low volume) | Confidential, market competitive | Unknown |
Features
| Web acceleration | Limelight | BelugaCDN |
|---|---|---|
| Instant setupSign up, configure, start testing. |
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| Change propagation delayHow fast do config changes propagate to all POPs? |
A few minutes
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Often instant, sometimes a few minutes
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Apex/root domain OK  No performance degradation when using http(s)://domain.com |
Alias support optional
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Global Anycasted IP available, but Beluga recommends against it
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| HTTP/2 |
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| IPv6Do the edge servers have IPv6? |
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| Compression Reduce file size for faster delivery |
Resend from origin or compress on edge | Compress on the fly |
| Origin pull - protocolHTTP only or HTTPS possible too? |
HTTP and HTTPS.
Match protocol
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HTTP and HTTPS.
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| Origin pull - Host headerUse client > edge value? Set specific value? |
Configure specific other Host header
CDN can also forward client request Host header to origin
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| Origin shieldOne POP pulls from origin, other POPs pull from the shield POP |
Self-service control
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Available upon request
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| Push / uploadStore your content directly on CDN, no customer origin |
Origin Storage. Upload via UI or API
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Available upon request
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| Cache control - CDN caching |
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Honor origin sent headers or configure overrides
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| Cache control - client caching |
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| Serve stale CDN serves cached but expired content in case origin is in trouble |
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| Purge Invalidate or delete cached objects on CDN |
Instant
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Instant
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| Purge - capabilities |
Purge by path, all, pattern, wildcard.
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Purge all and purge using regex
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| Analytics |
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All metrics are aggregated every 10 seconds, exported in real-time
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| Log files |
Download logs via FTP, SFTP, rsync and scp
Delay is ~10 minutes
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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, OVP, origin storage
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Purge, analytics, configuration
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| HTTPS & Content Protection | Limelight | BelugaCDN |
|---|---|---|
| CDN domain HTTPSUse the CDN's domain, like cloudfront.net |
Free. SNI
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| Customer domain HTTPSYour domain in the CDN's certificate |
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| Customer cert HTTPSYour certificate on the CDN |
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Free (SNI)
TLS support includes full TLS Dynamic Record Sizing and ECDSA support per Q1 2017
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| Token authentication |
MediaVault. Highly customizable
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| Geo blocking |
IP access control by Geo and IP
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| Hotlink protectionThird parties cannot deeplink to your content |
MediaVault. Highly customizable
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| Basic authenticationUser logs in on the CDN to get content |
MediaVault. Highly customizable
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| IP white/blacklisting |
MediaVault. Highly customizable
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Support
| Customer support | Limelight | BelugaCDN |
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| Documentation |
Yes, but not public
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Yes, public
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| Humans |
All customers get 24/7 email and phone support. Customers who purchase Advanced Services have access to a designated Limelight Advanced Services team member.
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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).
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