Is Akamai CDN or Fastly cheaper in 2026?

It depends on volume — Akamai CDN wins 2 of the 3 modelled workloads and Fastly wins 1. The scenario table above shows where the crossover falls.

What is the difference in egress cost between Akamai CDN and Fastly?

Akamai CDN charges $0.085 per GB against Fastly's $0.120, roughly 1.4× cheaper. Egress usually dominates the bill once traffic is measured in terabytes.

Which has the better free tier, Akamai CDN or Fastly?

Fastly does — 100 GB of bandwidth per month, permanently 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.

Akamai CDN vs Fastly

Neither wins outright: Akamai CDN is cheaper for 2 of 3 workloads and Fastly for the rest.

List prices checked May 2026

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	Fastly	Difference
Data transfer out	$0.085/GB	$0.120/GB	1.4× Akamai CDN
Free tier	No	Yes	—

Source: Akamai pricing (May 2026) · Fastly pricing (August 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	Fastly	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	Fastlysaves $8.50/mo (100%)
Growing SaaSA funded product serving a few thousand daily users, with an image-heavy frontend and two application servers.	$85	$108	Akamai CDNsaves $23/mo (21%)
Media-heavy siteA publisher or video product where delivery dominates the bill and compute is almost an afterthought.	$850	$1,188	Akamai CDNsaves $338/mo (28%)

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.

Fastly

by Fastly

A programmable CDN with instant global purge and edge compute. Priced at the top of the market per gigabyte and sold on control rather than cost, with a permanent 100 GB monthly free allowance.

Free tier: 100 GB of bandwidth per month, permanently free

Common questions

Is Akamai CDN or Fastly cheaper in 2026?: It depends on volume — Akamai CDN wins 2 of the 3 modelled workloads and Fastly wins 1. The scenario table above shows where the crossover falls.
What is the difference in egress cost between Akamai CDN and Fastly?: Akamai CDN charges $0.085 per GB against Fastly's $0.120, roughly 1.4× cheaper. Egress usually dominates the bill once traffic is measured in terabytes.
Which has the better free tier, Akamai CDN or Fastly?: Fastly does — 100 GB of bandwidth per month, permanently 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.