Content delivery networks
Asked as “CDN”, and as “content delivery network”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. 46 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
By buyer segment
The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.
01The standing
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for a mid-market B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
Show the five products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its vendor page.
One product takes 80% of first choices here, so the chart would put seven markers in one corner and one at the far edge. The two measurements it plots are columns in the standing above: share, and the negative label rate. One product carries a negative rate above 25% in this category. Jump to the standing
02What they warned about
Ten of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Llama 4 Maverick and Kimi K2 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Akamai40%
17 of 42 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“**Avoid** jumping straight to Akamai or other enterprise-tier CDNs unless you have truly global enterprise needs” DeepSeek V4 Flash, paraphrase prompt
Amazon CloudFront18%
9 of 51 labels negative · 8 of 12 models
“All major CDNs studied (including Cloudflare, Microsoft Azure, Amazon, and Fastly) have been found to have back-end TLS connections vulnerable” Claude Haiku 4.5, negative prompt
cdnjs100%
6 of 6 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 4 hard negative
“Public CDNs like Google Hosted Libraries, CDNjs, and jsDelivr, as they can pose security, privacy, and stability risks.” Llama 4 Maverick, negative prompt
Cloudflare9%
6 of 64 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Cloudflare's CDN, as it may slow down your website, and pointing your DNS to Cloudflare can make timely recovery unlikely in case of an outage.” Llama 4 Maverick, negative prompt
03What they cite
Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: twelve of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.
Sites the answers cite
61 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 6 of those lists are Google grounding redirects that name no site and are left out of the counts. 681 links across 197 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.
vendor site · BlazingCDN40 answers · 97 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Fastly26 answers · 33 citations · 11 models
20 answers · 20 citations · 10 models
15 answers · 15 citations · 8 models
14 answers · 20 citations · 7 models
12 answers · 13 citations · 6 models
11 answers · 11 citations · 7 models
vendor site · EdgeNext10 answers · 11 citations · 6 models
10 answers · 10 citations · 5 models
9 answers · 9 citations · 6 models
8 answers · 8 citations · 4 models
vendor site · Cloudflare7 answers · 9 citations · 4 models
Pages the answers cite
The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.
20 answers · 10 models
13 answers · 8 models
13 answers · 9 models
13 answers · 8 models
12 answers · 6 models
11 answers · 7 models
10 answers · 5 models
8 answers · 5 models
8 answers · 4 models
7 answers · 5 models
04How they answered
Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ModelDirect“What is the best CDN for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which content delivery network would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top CDNs and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best CDN for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating a CDN. What should we look at?”Negative“Which CDNs should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5CloudflareCloudflareHeldCloudflareCloudflare, jsDelivrno first choiceagainst: Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, Cloudflare, Fastly, Microsoft Azure
Three alternatives
Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, FastlyThree alternatives
Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.netSeven alternatives
Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, Azure CDN, Bunny.net, CDN77, Gcore, KeyCDNThree alternatives
Bunny.net, Gcore, KeyCDNGPT-5.4 miniCloudflareCloudflareHeldno first choiceCloudflareagainst: Fastlyno first choicenothing named
Three alternatives
Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, FastlyThree alternatives
Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, FastlySix alternatives
Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, Cloudflare, Fastly, Google Cloud CDN, Microsoft Azure CDN / Front DoorOne alternative
Bunny.netGemini 3.5 FlashCloudflareCloudflareHeldagainst: Akamai, Bunny.net, KeyCDNCloudflareCloudflareCloudflareagainst: Akamai, Alibaba Cloud CDN, Amazon CloudFront, Azure CDN, Azure Front Door, Baidu Cloud, CDNetworks, Edgio, Google Cloud CDN, StackPath, Tencent Cloud CDN, cdnjs, jsDelivr, unpkg
Three alternatives
Amazon CloudFront, CDN77, FastlyTwo alternatives
Amazon CloudFront, FastlyFour alternatives
Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.net, FastlyThree alternatives
Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.net, GcoreFour alternatives
Amazon CloudFront, Azure Front Door, Bunny.net, FastlyPerplexity SonarCloudflareCloudflareHeldCloudflareBunny.net, Cloudflareno first choicenothing named
Four alternatives
Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, CDN77, FastlyFour alternatives
Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.net, Fastly, KeyCDNFour alternatives
Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, Fastly, Google Cloud CDNOne alternative
KeyCDNGrok 4.1 FastCloudflareagainst: AkamaiCloudflareHeldagainst: AkamaiCloudflareCloudflareCloudflareagainst: Akamaiagainst: Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, Azure CDN, Cloudflare, Fastly, Google Hosted Libraries, Imperva, cdnjs, jsDelivr, unpkg
Four alternatives
Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.net, CDN77, FastlyOne alternative
Amazon CloudFrontFour alternatives
Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, Fastly, Google Cloud CDNOne alternative
Bunny.netThree alternatives
Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.net, FastlyMistral SmallCloudflareCloudflareHeldagainst: AkamaiCloudflareCloudflareno first choiceagainst: BootCDN, Bootcss, Google Hosted Libraries, Polyfill.io, Staticfile, cdnjs
Three alternatives
Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.net, CDN77One alternative
FastlyFour alternatives
Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, Fastly, Google Cloud CDNTwo alternatives
Bunny.net, jsDelivrDeepSeek V4 FlashCloudflareagainst: AkamaiCloudflareHeldagainst: AkamaiBunny.net, CloudflareBunny.net, Cloudflareno first choiceagainst: Amazon CloudFront, BlazingCDN, Bunny.net, Microsoft Azure
Three alternatives
Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.net, FastlyThree alternatives
Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.net, FastlyFour alternatives
Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, Fastly, Google Cloud CDNLlama 4 Maverickno first choiceBunny.netChangedno first choiceBunny.netno first choiceagainst: Cloudflare, Google Hosted Libraries, cdnjs, jsDelivr
Five alternatives
Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, Cloudflare, Fastly, Google Media CDNTwo alternatives
BlazingCDN, CloudflareQwen 3.7 FlashCloudflareCloudflareHeldno first choiceBunny.net, CloudflareCloudflare, Fastlyagainst: Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, LiteSpeed, StackPathagainst: Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, Cloudflare, Edgio, Fastly
Three alternatives
Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.net, CDN77Two alternatives
Bunny.net, FastlyFive alternatives
Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, Cloudflare, Fastly, Google Cloud CDNOne alternative
KeyCDNKimi K2Bunny.net, CloudflareCloudflareChangedCloudflareCloudflareno first choiceagainst: Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, Cloudflare, Fastly, cdnjs, jsDelivr
Two alternatives
CDN77, FastlyThree alternatives
Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.net, FastlyFour alternatives
Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, Fastly, Google Cloud CDNThree alternatives
Bunny.net, EdgeOne, KeyCDNGLM 4.7 FlashXCloudflareagainst: Akamai, FastlyCloudflareHeldagainst: Akamai, FastlyCloudflareCloudflareagainst: Akamai, Fastlyno first choiceagainst: Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, Cloudflare, Fastly, Microsoft Azure
Three alternatives
Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.net, CDN77One alternative
Amazon CloudFrontSeven alternatives
Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, BlazingCDN, Bunny.net, Fastly, Google Cloud CDN, KeyCDNThree alternatives
Bunny.net, EdgeOne, KeyCDNMiniMax M2.5CloudflareCloudflareHeldCloudflareCloudflareBunny.net, Cloudflareagainst: Amazon CloudFront, Google APIs, Webflow CDN, cdnjs, jsDelivr, unpkg
Four alternatives
Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.net, CDN77, FastlyThree alternatives
Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, FastlyFour alternatives
Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, Fastly, Google Cloud CDNOne alternative
Bunny.netOne alternative
FastlyBold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against
05The record
One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
| Prompt | Model | Version string | Time (UTC) | Searched | Sources | Latency |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Direct recommendation | Claude Haiku 4.5 | claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 | 2026-09-17 11:53 | no | 0 | 5 s |
| Direct recommendation | GPT-5.4 mini | gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17 | 2026-09-17 13:11 | no | 0 | 4 s |
| Direct recommendation | Gemini 3.5 Flash | gemini-3.5-flash | 2026-09-17 09:45 | yes | 12 | 22 s |
| Direct recommendation | Perplexity Sonar | sonar | 2026-09-17 13:11 | yes | 20 | 6 s |
| Direct recommendation | Grok 4.1 Fast | spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex | 2026-09-17 12:42 | yes | 37 | 18 s |
| Direct recommendation | Mistral Small | mistral/mistral-small via mistral | 2026-09-17 10:38 | yes | 5 | 4 s |
| Direct recommendation | DeepSeek V4 Flash | deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks | 2026-09-17 11:58 | yes | 15 | 19 s |
| Direct recommendation | Llama 4 Maverick | meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock | 2026-09-17 11:33 | yes | 5 | 3 s |
| Direct recommendation | Qwen 3.7 Flash | alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba | 2026-09-17 13:03 | yes | 5 | 55 s |
| Direct recommendation | Kimi K2 | moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita | 2026-09-17 11:29 | yes | 15 | 29 s |
| Direct recommendation | GLM 4.7 FlashX | zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai | 2026-09-17 11:33 | yes | 15 | 230 s |
| Direct recommendation | MiniMax M2.5 | minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax | 2026-09-17 13:17 | yes | 5 | 25 s |
| Paraphrase | Claude Haiku 4.5 | claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 | 2026-09-17 10:22 | no | 0 | 5 s |
| Paraphrase | GPT-5.4 mini | gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17 | 2026-09-17 09:53 | yes | 4 | 4 s |
| Paraphrase | Gemini 3.5 Flash | gemini-3.5-flash | 2026-09-17 12:04 | yes | 9 | 22 s |
| Paraphrase | Perplexity Sonar | sonar | 2026-09-17 11:14 | yes | 20 | 3 s |
| Paraphrase | Grok 4.1 Fast | spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex | 2026-09-17 12:35 | yes | 35 | 15 s |
| Paraphrase | Mistral Small | mistral/mistral-small via mistral | 2026-09-17 10:10 | yes | 14 | 11 s |
| Paraphrase | DeepSeek V4 Flash | deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks | 2026-09-17 11:26 | yes | 10 | 12 s |
| Paraphrase | Llama 4 Maverick | meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock | 2026-09-17 13:23 | yes | 5 | 3 s |
| Paraphrase | Qwen 3.7 Flash | alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba | 2026-09-17 13:49 | yes | 9 | 31 s |
| Paraphrase | Kimi K2 | moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita | 2026-09-17 11:08 | yes | 15 | 27 s |
| Paraphrase | GLM 4.7 FlashX | zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai | 2026-09-17 12:07 | yes | 10 | 25 s |
| Paraphrase | MiniMax M2.5 | minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax | 2026-09-17 12:19 | no | 0 | 11 s |
| Comparative | Claude Haiku 4.5 | claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 | 2026-09-17 13:57 | yes | 9 | 6 s |
| Comparative | GPT-5.4 mini | gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17 | 2026-09-17 12:12 | no | 0 | 7 s |
| Comparative | Gemini 3.5 Flash | gemini-3.5-flash | 2026-09-17 13:06 | yes | 9 | 28 s |
| Comparative | Perplexity Sonar | sonar | 2026-09-17 12:45 | yes | 20 | 8 s |
| Comparative | Grok 4.1 Fast | spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex | 2026-09-17 10:42 | yes | 14 | 12 s |
| Comparative | Mistral Small | mistral/mistral-small via mistral | 2026-09-17 10:39 | yes | 5 | 5 s |
| Comparative | DeepSeek V4 Flash | deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks | 2026-09-17 12:26 | yes | 10 | 14 s |
| Comparative | Llama 4 Maverick | meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock | 2026-09-17 11:47 | yes | 5 | 3 s |
| Comparative | Qwen 3.7 Flash | alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba | 2026-09-17 10:45 | yes | 5 | 18 s |
| Comparative | Kimi K2 | moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita | 2026-09-17 09:37 | yes | 10 | 23 s |
| Comparative | GLM 4.7 FlashX | zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai | 2026-09-17 10:17 | yes | 10 | 25 s |
| Comparative | MiniMax M2.5 | minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax | 2026-09-17 12:41 | yes | 15 | 52 s |
| Budget constrained | Claude Haiku 4.5 | claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 | 2026-09-17 10:02 | yes | 9 | 7 s |
| Budget constrained | GPT-5.4 mini | gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17 | 2026-09-17 10:44 | yes | 3 | 5 s |
| Budget constrained | Gemini 3.5 Flash | gemini-3.5-flash | 2026-09-17 11:27 | yes | 14 | 21 s |
| Budget constrained | Perplexity Sonar | sonar | 2026-09-17 12:41 | yes | 20 | 5 s |
| Budget constrained | Grok 4.1 Fast | spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex | 2026-09-17 14:01 | yes | 19 | 9 s |
| Budget constrained | Mistral Small | mistral/mistral-small via mistral | 2026-09-17 12:25 | yes | 5 | 4 s |
| Budget constrained | DeepSeek V4 Flash | deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks | 2026-09-17 10:51 | yes | 10 | 15 s |
| Budget constrained | Llama 4 Maverick | meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock | 2026-09-17 12:45 | yes | 5 | 3 s |
| Budget constrained | Qwen 3.7 Flash | alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba | 2026-09-17 10:43 | yes | 5 | 40 s |
| Budget constrained | Kimi K2 | moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita | 2026-09-17 09:57 | yes | 5 | 17 s |
| Budget constrained | GLM 4.7 FlashX | zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai | 2026-09-17 11:08 | yes | 14 | 76 s |
| Budget constrained | MiniMax M2.5 | minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax | 2026-09-17 11:31 | yes | 5 | 15 s |
| Scale constrained | Claude Haiku 4.5 | claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 | 2026-09-17 11:43 | no | 0 | 7 s |
| Scale constrained | GPT-5.4 mini | gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17 | 2026-09-17 10:19 | no | 0 | 9 s |
| Scale constrained | Gemini 3.5 Flash | gemini-3.5-flash | 2026-09-17 13:42 | yes | 8 | 29 s |
| Scale constrained | Perplexity Sonar | sonar | 2026-09-17 10:58 | yes | 20 | 7 s |
| Scale constrained | Grok 4.1 Fast | spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex | 2026-09-17 10:02 | yes | 17 | 11 s |
| Scale constrained | Mistral Small | mistral/mistral-small via mistral | 2026-09-17 12:29 | no | 0 | 7 s |
| Scale constrained | DeepSeek V4 Flash | deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks | 2026-09-17 13:29 | yes | 18 | 30 s |
| Scale constrained | Llama 4 Maverick | meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock | 2026-09-17 11:34 | yes | 5 | 3 s |
| Scale constrained | Qwen 3.7 Flash | alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba | 2026-09-17 12:41 | no | 0 | 38 s |
| Scale constrained | Kimi K2 | moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita | 2026-09-17 13:42 | yes | 10 | 24 s |
| Scale constrained | GLM 4.7 FlashX | zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai | 2026-09-17 13:55 | no | 0 | 36 s |
| Scale constrained | MiniMax M2.5 | minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax | 2026-09-17 10:54 | yes | 5 | 22 s |
| Negative framing | Claude Haiku 4.5 | claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 | 2026-09-17 10:14 | yes | 18 | 10 s |
| Negative framing | GPT-5.4 mini | gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17 | 2026-09-17 14:11 | no | 0 | 4 s |
| Negative framing | Gemini 3.5 Flash | gemini-3.5-flash | 2026-09-17 11:41 | yes | 24 | 29 s |
| Negative framing | Perplexity Sonar | sonar | 2026-09-17 09:36 | yes | 20 | 8 s |
| Negative framing | Grok 4.1 Fast | spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex | 2026-09-17 11:37 | yes | 38 | 19 s |
| Negative framing | Mistral Small | mistral/mistral-small via mistral | 2026-09-17 12:51 | yes | 5 | 5 s |
| Negative framing | DeepSeek V4 Flash | deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks | 2026-09-17 11:28 | yes | 18 | 22 s |
| Negative framing | Llama 4 Maverick | meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock | 2026-09-17 13:48 | yes | 6 | 4 s |
| Negative framing | Qwen 3.7 Flash | alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba | 2026-09-17 10:34 | yes | 5 | 46 s |
| Negative framing | Kimi K2 | moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita | 2026-09-17 10:38 | yes | 23 | 45 s |
| Negative framing | GLM 4.7 FlashX | zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai | 2026-09-17 14:11 | yes | 21 | 85 s |
| Negative framing | MiniMax M2.5 | minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax | 2026-09-17 11:45 | yes | 5 | 31 s |
Normalization in this category
Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.
Category-scoped readings
Amazon read as Amazon CloudFront
Unresolved, counted raw
Baidu Cloud
BootCDN
Bootcss
Google APIs
LiteSpeed
OVHcloud CDN
Staticfile
Webflow CDN
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.