“CDN” and “edge compute” get used almost interchangeably now, but they’re not the same purchase decision. A classic content delivery network caches your static assets — images, video, CSS, JS, API responses — at points of presence close to your visitors and absorbs traffic spikes and DDoS attacks before they ever reach your origin server. That’s a different product from running your own code at the edge, which this site covers separately in our Edge Computing Platforms comparison (Cloudflare Workers vs. Fastly Compute vs. Vercel Edge Functions). This piece is about the older, simpler job: getting your existing content delivered fast, everywhere, and kept online under attack. Three names dominate that conversation — Cloudflare, Fastly, and Akamai — and they price, size, and position themselves very differently.
At a Glance
| CDN | Entry Pricing | Published Network Size | Pricing Transparency |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare | Free tier available; Pro $20/mo (annual) or $25/mo (monthly); Business $200/mo (annual) or $250/mo (monthly) | 348 cities across 8 regions; 100+ countries; 13,000+ network interconnections | Fully published self-serve pricing |
| Fastly | First 100 GB/month and first 1M requests/month free; then usage-based per-GB/per-region pricing; preconfigured packages from $1,500/month | 114 live city locations (some with multiple PoPs); network capacity reported as 655 Tbps (Sept 30, 2026 stat) or 622 Tbps elsewhere on Fastly’s own site — the two figures disagree | Fully published usage-based pricing plus package tiers |
| Akamai | No public pricing — custom quote only | 4,000+ edge PoPs; 1,200+ networks; 130+ countries; 1+ Pbps edge capacity | Quote-only, no self-serve pricing published |
Short Verdict
Cloudflare is the easiest CDN to start with today: a genuinely free tier with unmetered DDoS protection, fully published pricing up through its Business plan, and a network Cloudflare describes as spanning 348 cities. Fastly is the usage-based, transparent-pricing option for teams who want to see exactly what each gigabyte and request costs across regions, with a smaller but still substantial city footprint and packages that scale into enterprise territory. Akamai is the oldest and, by its own published figures, the largest network of the three by PoP count — but it publishes no self-serve pricing anywhere, which means every Akamai CDN deal starts with a sales conversation rather than a pricing page.
What Each One Actually Is
Cloudflare
Cloudflare’s CDN sits in front of a site at the DNS level and caches content across a network it describes, on its own network page, as 348 cities spanning 8 regions, with 100+ countries and 13,000+ network interconnections. A separate Cloudflare blog post from April 2026 puts total provisioned external interconnection capacity at 500 Tbps across 330+ cities — a different city count than the main network page, which is a reminder that these self-reported figures are snapshots, not a single frozen number. Plans run Free ($0/month) through Pro, Business, and a custom-quoted Contract tier, with the plan comparison listing “Unmetered DDoS Protection” on every tier, including Free.
Fastly
Fastly’s Full Site Delivery product bills bandwidth per GB, broken out by region, with the first 100 GB and the first 1 million requests free every month. Fastly’s own network map page lists 114 live city locations (several marked as having multiple individual PoPs, so the true PoP count exceeds the city count) with four more cities listed as “coming soon.” On network capacity, Fastly’s site states two different figures in different places — “655 Tbps of connected global capacity” as of September 30, 2026 in one stats panel, and “622 Tbps” in its network-map teaser elsewhere on the same site — which we’re flagging here rather than picking one, since both appear on Fastly’s own pages.
Akamai
Akamai is the longest-established of the three, and its CDN business is bundled into a much larger security and cloud-computing portfolio. Akamai’s own “Global Infrastructure” page states its network spans 4,000+ edge PoPs, 1,200+ networks, and 130+ countries, with over 1 petabit per second of edge capacity. Consistent with most of Akamai’s enterprise product line, there is no published price list for its CDN anywhere on Akamai’s own site — every deployment is quoted individually, which our research also confirmed is true of Akamai’s adjacent App & API Protector and Prolexic DDoS products.
Pricing Breakdown
| Tier/Plan | Cloudflare | Fastly | Akamai |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free / entry tier | Free plan, $0/month, includes unmetered DDoS protection | First 100 GB bandwidth + first 1M requests free every month | None published |
| Mid-tier self-serve | Pro: $20/mo annual or $25/mo monthly; Business: $200/mo annual or $250/mo monthly | Usage-based: e.g. $0.12/GB (Europe/North America, 100GB–10TB tier), dropping to $0.08/GB on the next 10TB; other regions range up to $0.28/GB | Not published |
| Packaged/enterprise | Custom-quoted Contract tier (annual billing) | Basic package $1,500/month (100M requests); Starter package $6,000/month (500M requests) | Custom quote only, for every tier |
| Request-based billing | Not metered on paid plans; Free tier has no published request cap | First 1M requests/month free, then $0.01 per 10,000 (1M–100M tier), $0.0095 per 10,000 (next 100M) | Not published |
Pros
- Cloudflare: genuinely usable free tier with unmetered DDoS protection included from day one; fully transparent self-serve pricing through Business; very large published city/network footprint.
- Fastly: fully itemized, usage-based pricing that scales predictably with actual traffic; a real free monthly allowance, not just a trial; packaged tiers give a clear jump-off point for growing traffic.
- Akamai: the largest published PoP count of the three (4,000+) and the longest operating history in the CDN market, with security and performance products that go well beyond basic content delivery.
Cons
- Cloudflare: its own pages give inconsistent city counts across different publications (348 vs. 330+), so treat exact figures as approximate; advanced compliance and SLA features are gated behind the Business tier and above.
- Fastly: smaller published city footprint than Cloudflare or Akamai; its own site states two conflicting network-capacity figures (655 Tbps vs. 622 Tbps); jump from the free allowance to a $1,500+/month package is a bigger step than Cloudflare’s $20/month Pro tier.
- Akamai: zero public pricing anywhere, for the CDN or its adjacent security products, which makes it effectively impossible to budget for without a direct sales engagement.
Who It’s a Good Fit For
Cloudflare fits startups, small sites, and teams who want strong default performance and DDoS protection immediately, with a clear self-serve upgrade path as compliance or SLA needs grow. Fastly fits teams that want precise, predictable, usage-based billing and are comfortable reading a per-region rate card, especially those already weighing Fastly’s Compute platform for edge logic alongside its CDN. Akamai fits large enterprises with high, globally distributed traffic — particularly those with strict compliance or security requirements — who are prepared to go through a sales and contracting process rather than self-serve signup.
Who Should Look Elsewhere
Teams that want to budget precisely before writing a line of code should be cautious with Akamai, since no number is available until a sales conversation happens. Teams that want the absolute largest published PoP footprint and don’t need Cloudflare’s broader product ecosystem might find Fastly’s smaller city count a limiting factor. And teams that specifically need to run custom code at the edge — not just cache static assets — should look at our separate edge computing platforms comparison rather than treating any of these three purely as CDNs.
Bottom Line
For most teams starting out, Cloudflare’s combination of a real free tier, included DDoS protection, and transparent self-serve pricing makes it the easiest on-ramp. Fastly is the right call when you want granular, usage-based cost visibility and are prepared to read a regional rate card closely. Akamai remains the default choice for large enterprises that value its network scale and broader security portfolio enough to go through a custom quoting process — but it’s not a CDN you can price-compare on a spreadsheet without talking to sales first.
FAQ
Is Cloudflare’s free CDN tier actually usable for a production site?
Cloudflare’s own plan comparison lists unmetered DDoS protection as included on the Free plan, alongside core CDN caching — it’s a genuine free tier, not a time-limited trial, though features like PCI DSS 4.0 compliance and an uptime SLA are reserved for Business and above.
Why doesn’t Akamai publish CDN pricing?
Akamai’s enterprise sales model, consistent across its CDN, WAF, and DDoS protection (Prolexic) product lines, relies on custom quotes tailored to traffic volume, feature set, and contract term rather than a published self-serve rate card.
How is this different from the Cloudflare Workers vs. Fastly Compute vs. Vercel comparison on this site?
That piece compares edge compute platforms — where you run your own custom code at the network edge. This piece compares the same companies’ (and Akamai’s) classic CDN products — caching and delivering static assets and absorbing traffic/DDoS load, with no custom code involved.
Which CDN has the biggest network?
By published PoP count, Akamai claims the largest footprint at 4,000+ edge PoPs, versus Cloudflare’s 348 cities and Fastly’s 114 live city locations. PoP count and city count aren’t directly comparable metrics, though, since a single city can host multiple PoPs.
Sources
- Cloudflare — Plans and Pricing
- Cloudflare — Global Network
- Cloudflare Blog — “500 Tbps of Capacity: 16 Years of Scaling Our Global Network” (April 2026)
- Fastly — Pricing
- Fastly — Network Map
- Akamai — Global Infrastructure
- Related reading on this site: Edge Computing Platforms Compared in 2026
- Related reading on this site: Web Application Firewalls Compared in 2026
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