When comparing Akamai vs MaxCDN, the Slant community recommends Akamai for most people. In the question“What are the best content delivery networks (CDNs)?” Akamai is ranked 3rd while MaxCDN is ranked 4th. The most important reason people chose Akamai is:
Being one of the worlds largest CDNs, Akamai's large scale gives it a huge point of presence (PoP) to handle volumetric attacks.
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Pros
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.
Pro Powerful tools
Pro 100% uptime
MaxCDN promises an uptime of 100%.
Pro Popular blogging, ecommerce and plugin solutions
Pro HTTP and RTMP support
HTTP and RTMP variant audio and video streaming.
Pro NetDNA uses the Packet Exchange backbone
Pro Real-time live streaming support
Real-time live streaming support using Wowza Media Server Advanced 2 clusters.
Cons
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.
