CloudFront vs Akamai
When comparing CloudFront vs Akamai, the Slant community recommends CloudFront for most people. In the question“What are the best content delivery networks (CDNs)?” CloudFront is ranked 2nd while Akamai is ranked 3rd. The most important reason people chose CloudFront is:
CloudFront can deliver dynamic, static and streaming content.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Any type of content
CloudFront can deliver dynamic, static and streaming content.
Pro Dynamic scaling
CloudFront will allocate more hardware resources when needed automatically. It will take care of traffic spikes and accommodate product's growth without needing manual input from the user.
Pro Simple interface
Pro Tight integration with other Amazon Web Services
CloudFront integrates tightly with Amazon's storage, computing, database and networking services allowing you to use a tested and cohesively developed set of solutions.
Pro Large scale point of presence
Being one of the worlds largest CDNs, Akamai's large scale gives it a huge point of presence (PoP) to handle volumetric attacks.
Pro Deeply customizable rules
The Kona Site Defender rules are all customizable, with continuous updates from Akamai. This means you can see how they are protecting your site under the hood, and adjust them to your needs.
Pro Lots of dedicated bandwidth specifically for DDoS absorption
Through Prolexic's PLXedge, Akamai provides their customers with a total of 2.3 Tbps of dedicated DDoS absorption bandwidth.
Pro Rules for rate limiting
Akamai provides tools for rate controlling traffic segments based on their request rate behavior.
Pro Capped bursting fees
If a sudden attack sucks up a lot of bandwidth, the bandwidth costs are capped.
Pro Application layer protection
Akamai utilizes a proprietary web application firewall in order to provide scalable protection against application layer attacks.
Cons
Con Can get expensive quickly
Con Expensive
Akami's services cost more than triple comparative packages from other security companies. At 13k a month for DDoS protection, there are many other choices out there that cost less for the same protection.
Con Slower security rule propagation
Because of Akamai's large CDN structure, it can take some time for security rules to propagate, making it harder to adjust security responses on the fly.