Akamai CDN vs Cloudflare CDN
Cloudflare CDN is cheaper across every workload modelled here.
List prices checked
Rate cards side by side
Only the axes at least one of them bills on. A dash means that provider does not charge for it.
| Billing axis | Akamai CDN | Cloudflare CDN | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry plan | — | $20.00/mo | — |
| Data transfer out | $0.085/GB | Free | — |
| Free tier | No | Yes | — |
Source: Akamai pricing (May 2026) · Cloudflare pricing (May 2026). Published list prices only — committed-use discounts, regional variation, and per-request charges are not included. Not yet independently re-checked against the vendor’s page.
Monthly cost for three real workloads
The rate cards applied to identical usage. This is where the winner changes.
| Workload | Akamai CDN | Cloudflare CDN | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Side projectA personal site or small app with modest traffic, a few gigabytes of assets, and one small always-on process. | $8.50 | $0 | Cloudflare CDNsaves $8.50/mo (100%) |
| Growing SaaSA funded product serving a few thousand daily users, with an image-heavy frontend and two application servers. | $85 | $0 | Cloudflare CDNsaves $85/mo (100%) |
| Media-heavy siteA publisher or video product where delivery dominates the bill and compute is almost an afterthought. | $850 | $0 | Cloudflare CDNsaves $850/mo (100%) |
Workload definitions are identical on every comparison page, so figures here can be read against any other pair in the same category.
What each one is for
Akamai CDN
by Akamai
The largest delivery network by points of presence, sold through negotiated enterprise contracts. Published rates apply only to the self-service tier and understate what large customers actually pay.
Cloudflare CDN
by Cloudflare
Bandwidth is not metered on any Cloudflare plan, so the CDN bill is a flat plan fee regardless of volume. That makes cost prediction trivial and makes it the default choice for bandwidth-heavy static sites.
Free tier: Unmetered CDN bandwidth on every plan including free
Common questions
- Is Akamai CDN or Cloudflare CDN cheaper in 2026?
- Cloudflare CDN is cheaper in all 3 modelled workloads.
- What is the difference in egress cost between Akamai CDN and Cloudflare CDN?
- Cloudflare CDN does not charge for data transfer out at all, while Akamai CDN charges $0.085 per GB. On a read-heavy workload that difference is the entire comparison.
- Which has the better free tier, Akamai CDN or Cloudflare CDN?
- Cloudflare CDN does — Unmetered CDN bandwidth on every plan including free. Akamai CDN bills from the first unit of usage.
- What do these estimates not include?
- Committed-use and reserved discounts, regional price variation, per-request API charges, support plans, and minimum retention periods. All of those move real invoices, sometimes by a lot. These figures compare published list prices for the same workload, which is the comparison the rate cards alone cannot give you.