Easily compare Lumen and AdvancedHosting 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 | Lumen | AdvancedHosting |
|---|---|---|
| Short profile | 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. | AdvancedHosting provides dedicated servers, cloud servers, cloud storage, CDN, AnycastDNS, DevOps as a Service and domain registration since 2002. The CDN has ~25 POPs on 4 continents, supporting delivery of video and static assets. |
Products
| Product | Lumen | AdvancedHosting |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | CDN for Static Content |
| Large file deliveryStatic object delivery; caching of large files (file size >1 MB) | ||
| Live videoDelivery of live video. RTMP? Transcoding/transmuxing? | CDN and/or CDN Mesh Delivery | CDN for Video |
| Video on demandDelivery of on demand video | CDN and/or CDN Mesh Delivery | CDN for Video |
| Image OptimizationAutomatic image transformation/compression/optimization | part of CDN Edge Compute | |
| DNSAuthoritative DNS for customer domain | Anycast DNS | |
| 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 | CDN Mesh Delivery for Enterprise | |
| Edge ComputeRun your code on CDN edge servers | Edge Compute |
Network
How many POP locations do Lumen and AdvancedHosting have in different parts of the world?
| Region | Lumen | AdvancedHosting |
|---|---|---|
| North America | 28 | 9 |
| Latin America | 11 | 2 |
| Europe | 35 | 9 |
| Russia & CIS | 0 | 1 |
| Asia excl. China | 7 | 3 |
| China | 0 | 0 |
| Oceania | 5 | 0 |
| Middle East | 4 | 0 |
| Africa | 3 | 0 |
Pricing
| Pricing & contract duration | Lumen | AdvancedHosting |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum contract term | Unknown | None |
| Minimum monthly costs | Unknown | $0.01 |
| Requests costsCustomers pay for client to CDN requests | Unknown | None |
| Ingress costsCustomers pay for origin-to-CDN bytes transferred | Unknown | Yes |
| NA/EU traffic (low volume) | Unknown | $0.025 per GB or $0.5 per Mbps |
| APAC traffic (low volume) | Unknown | $0.025 per GB or $0.5 per Mbps |
| LATAM traffic (low volume) | Unknown | $0.025 per GB or $0.5 per Mbps |
Features
| Web acceleration | Lumen | AdvancedHosting |
|---|---|---|
| Instant setupSign up, configure, start testing. | Not yet, but coming soon. | |
| Change propagation delayHow fast do config changes propagate to all POPs? | No longer than 15 minutes - Often instant | 2 to 3 minutes (video takes longer) |
Apex/root domain OK  No performance degradation when using http(s)://domain.com |
Available with Section product for an additional fee | |
| HTTP/2 | ||
| HTTP/3 | ||
| WebSockets | ||
| IPv6Do the edge servers have IPv6? | ||
| Compression Reduce file size for faster delivery |
Resend from origin, or compress on edge |
Resend from origin only
Does not compress on the edge
|
| Origin pull - protocolHTTP only or HTTPS possible too? | HTTP and HTTPS. |
HTTP and HTTPS
Video: only pull over HTTP
|
| 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
|
Can be different from origin host
Video: only origin Host
|
| Origin ShieldOne POP pulls from origin, other POPs pull from the shield POP | Free. | |
| Waiting RoomDuring peak traffic, route users to a virtual waiting room | ||
| Push / uploadStore your content directly on CDN, no customer origin | FTP, SFTP, rsync. Storage costs apply | $25/TB |
| Cache control - CDN caching | Origin or CDN controlled | |
| Cache control - client caching | Origin or CDN controlled | |
| Serve Stale CDN serves cached but expired content in case origin is in trouble |
||
| Purge Invalidate or delete cached objects on CDN |
Instant | A few minutes |
| Purge - capabilities | Purge all but not purge by directory or tag or header | Purge specific files, purge all (not for VideoCDN) |
| Analytics | Cache hit ratio and error rate not yet available | |
| Log files | Available on request (support ticket) | |
| API | Purge, analytics, configuration | Purge, analytics, configuration |
| HTTPS & Content Protection | Lumen | AdvancedHosting |
|---|---|---|
| CDN domain HTTPSUse the CDN's domain, like cloudfront.net | ||
| Customer domain HTTPSYour domain in the CDN's certificate | Let's Encrypt with auto-renewal. CDN handles all. | |
| Customer cert HTTPSYour certificate on the CDN | Can be an EV certificate. Free. | |
| Token authentication | Antihotlink protection | |
| Geo blocking | VideoCDN only | |
| Hotlink protectionThird parties cannot deeplink to your content | Set allow and/or block list. | |
| Basic authenticationUser logs in on the CDN to get content | ||
| IP white/blacklisting | VideoCDN only |
Support
| Customer support | Lumen | AdvancedHosting |
|---|---|---|
| Documentation | Yes, but not public | API docs and VoD API docs |
| Humans | Ticket system, Skype and email support is free. |