Fastly vs Akamai
Zero of fourteen models named Fastly first on the direct prompt; zero named Akamai. Both were named by all fourteen models and Fastly carries 61 labels and Akamai 48, so the shares are not directly comparable.
Named in four categories this edition.
Named in four categories this edition.
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category; every quote names the model and the prompt it came from. Both figures come from the content delivery networks page.
By framing
FastlyFirst choices, of fourteen modelsAkamai
Across every category in the October 2026 Edition, Fastly and Akamai were named in the same answer 121 times, of the 175 answers naming Fastly and the 169 naming Akamai. In those answers Akamai took the first choice twenty-one times and Fastly one.
Every model, every framing
| Model | Direct | Paraphrase | Comparative | Budget-constrained | Scale-constrained | Negative |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | | | | | ||
| GPT-5.4 mini | | | | | ||
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | | | | | ||
| Perplexity Sonar | | | | |||
| Grok 4.1 Fast | | | | | | |
| Mistral Small | | |||||
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | | | | | | |
| Llama 4 Maverick | | |||||
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | | | | | ||
| Kimi K2 | | | | |||
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | | | | | | |
| MiniMax M2.5 | | | | |||
| GPT-6 Luna | | | | |||
| Muse Glimmer 30B | | | | |
Fastly Akamai first choice named as an alternative argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, Fastly on the left and Akamai on the right.The direct prompt
Neither was the first choice, one was named
7 of 14 modelsThe answer put something else first and named one of the two as an alternative.Neither was named
7 of 14 modelsThe answer made no first choice from these two in this category.Bold names in an answer are the products the judge labeled a first choice; a model naming several gives each of them that label. The full answer text for every row is in the record.
By buyer segment
Fastly0%#5 of 7Akamai0%#7 of 7Akamai31%#2 of 8Fastly6%#4 of 8What the models said about Fastly
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of seven in this category shown.
“Avoid enterprise ones (Akamai, Fastly) as they're pricier.” Grok 4.1 Fast · budget prompt · hard negative
“Fastly’s VCL‑based cache logic is powerful but can be brittle; mis‑configuration can lead to cache‑invalidation issues or performance regressions.” GLM 4.7 FlashX · negative prompt · soft negative
“good option for development-heavy teams ... but it is more specialized than Cloudflare for a broad mid-market B2B use case” Perplexity Sonar · direct prompt · soft negative
“Fastly: *The "Developer-First" Choice.* Best-in-class real-time purging ... Ideal if your engineering team wants complete programmatic control.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · scale prompt · first choice
“I'd recommend evaluating Cloudflare, Fastly, Akamai, and CloudFront first” GLM 4.7 FlashX · scale prompt · first choice
“Fastly if your site or app needs very fast purging, high configurability, real-time control, or developer-heavy workflows” GPT-5.4 mini · paraphrase prompt · alternative
What the models said about Akamai
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of seven in this category shown.
“Avoid enterprise ones (Akamai, Fastly) as they're pricier.” Grok 4.1 Fast · budget prompt · hard negative
“Avoid—too pricey/complex for mid-market.” Grok 4.1 Fast · direct prompt · hard negative
“traditionally complex to configure, slower to deploy changes, and usually the most expensive. Typically suited for very large enterprises” Gemini 3.5 Flash · scale prompt · soft negative
“One of the oldest and largest CDNs; handles ~30 %+ of internet traffic. ... Global scale & compliance: Akamai.” GLM 4.7 FlashX · comparative prompt · first choice
“I'd recommend evaluating Cloudflare, Fastly, Akamai, and CloudFront first” GLM 4.7 FlashX · scale prompt · first choice
“best when you need maximum resilience, compliance, and security depth, but it is generally positioned more toward large enterprises than mid-market teams” Perplexity Sonar · direct prompt · alternative
Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category, each against each. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.