Akamai vs Cloudflare
Cloudflare is cheaper in all 2 categories where both compete.
Category by category
Each provider's cheapest published option in each category, on the axis that category is billed on. A dash means they do not sell into it.
| Category | Akamai | Rate | Cloudflare | Rate | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CDN & edge delivery | Akamai CDN | $0.085 | Cloudflare CDN | Free | Cloudflare |
| Cloud compute & VPS | Linode (Akamai Cloud) | $0.0075 | — | — | only one competes |
| Object storage | Linode Object Storage | $0.020 | Cloudflare R2 | $0.015 | Cloudflare1.3× cheaper |
| Serverless functions | — | — | Cloudflare Workers | $5.00 | only one competes |
About each provider
Akamai
Headquartered in US · 3 priced services
The original CDN, which acquired Linode in 2022 to add compute. Enterprise delivery pricing is negotiated, while the Linode-derived cloud products are published and flat-rate.
Cloudflare
Headquartered in US · 3 priced services
An edge-first network that made zero egress fees its main commercial weapon. Storage and CDN products undercut the hyperscalers specifically on data transfer out.
Questions
- Is Akamai or Cloudflare cheaper in 2026?
- Cloudflare is cheaper in all 2 categories where both compete. Picking a provider on an aggregate "cheaper" verdict is usually a mistake — what matters is which of them is cheaper in the categories you actually buy.
- What does Akamai offer that Cloudflare does not?
- In this dataset: Cloud compute & VPS. Cloudflare has no priced equivalent in that category.
- What does Cloudflare offer that Akamai does not?
- In this dataset: Serverless functions. Akamai has no priced equivalent in that category.
- Should I use both?
- Often the cheapest answer, and the table above shows where the seams are. Splitting workloads across providers costs you cross-provider data transfer and a second bill to reason about, so it pays off when the per-category gap is large and the traffic between them is small.