Easily compare Lumen 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 | Lumen | Akamai |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | 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 | Lumen | Akamai |
|---|---|---|
| Dynamic content deliveryNon-cacheable content delivery. User login, shopping cart ... | CDN Edge Compute | Dynamic Site Accelerator |
| Small file deliveryStatic object delivery; caching of small files (file size <1 MB) | CDN and/or CDN Edge Compute | Ion |
| Large file deliveryStatic object delivery; caching of large files (file size >1 MB) | Download Delivery | |
| Live videoDelivery of live video. RTMP? Transcoding/transmuxing? | CDN and/or CDN Mesh Delivery | Adaptive Media Delivery |
| Video on demandDelivery of on demand video | CDN and/or CDN Mesh Delivery | |
| Image OptimizationAutomatic image transformation/compression/optimization | part of CDN Edge Compute | Image & Video Manager |
| DNSAuthoritative DNS for customer domain | Edge DNS | |
| WAFWeb Application Firewall | WAF | Web Application Protector |
| Anti-DDoSDDoS attack protection. Specific product(s) for this. | Lumen DDoS Hyper (on-demand) and DDoS Mitigation Service | Kona DDoS Defender |
| Private CDNDedicated edge resources & custom configs | CDN Mesh Delivery for Enterprise | |
| Edge ComputeRun your code on CDN edge servers | Edge Compute | EdgeWorkers |
Network
How many POP locations do Lumen and Akamai have in different parts of the world?
| Region | Lumen | Akamai |
|---|---|---|
| North America | 28 | ? |
| Latin America | 11 | ? |
| Europe | 35 | ? |
| Russia & CIS | 0 | ? |
| Asia excl. China | 7 | ? |
| China | 0 | ? |
| Oceania | 5 | ? |
| Middle-East | 4 | ? |
| Africa | 3 | ? |
Pricing
| Pricing & contract duration | Lumen | Akamai |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum contract term | Unknown | 12 months |
| Minimum monthly costs | Unknown | Unknown |
| Requests costsCustomers pay for client to CDN requests | Unknown | Unknown |
| Ingress costsCustomers pay for origin-to-CDN bytes transferred | Unknown | Unknown |
| NA/EU traffic (low volume) | Unknown | Unknown |
| APAC traffic (low volume) | Unknown | Unknown |
| LATAM traffic (low volume) | Unknown | Unknown |
Features
| Web acceleration | Lumen | Akamai |
|---|---|---|
| Instant setupSign up, configure, start testing. | Not yet, but coming soon. | Can't sign up and get started. Must talk to sales. |
| Change propagation delayHow fast do config changes propagate to all POPs? | No longer than 15 minutes - Often instant | |
Apex/root domain OK  No performance degradation when using http(s)://domain.com |
Available with Section product for an additional fee | If you also use their Fast DNS for your domain |
| HTTP/2 | ||
| WebSockets | WebSockets docs | |
| IPv6Do the edge servers have IPv6? | ||
| Compression Reduce file size for faster delivery |
Resend from origin, or compress on edge | 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? |
Configure specific other Host header
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 | Virtual Waiting Room | |
| Push / uploadStore your content directly on CDN, no customer origin | FTP, SFTP, rsync. Storage costs apply | |
| Cache control - CDN caching | ||
| 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 but not purge by directory or tag or header | |
| Analytics | ||
| Log files | ||
| API | Purge, analytics, configuration |
| HTTPS & Content Protection | Lumen | 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 | ||
| 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 | Lumen | Akamai |
|---|---|---|
| Documentation | Yes, but not public | Akamai techdocs |
| Humans |