Every category where a model named Akamai Connected Cloud for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.

Category	Function	Share	Rank	Negative rate	Labels	Quadrant
Cloud hosting	Cloud and infrastructure	0%	13 of 78	9%	34	accepted challenger

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for Akamai Connected Cloud yet. From the next edition this section shows, per buyer segment, whether its share moved by more than the measured noise floor.

By model

How each model treated Akamai Connected Cloud across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Twelve models, six prompts per category.

Model	Alternative	Mention	Negative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	0	4	0	4
GPT-5.4 mini	1	1	1	3
Gemini 3.5 Flash	3	0	1	4
Perplexity Sonar	0	0	0	0
Grok 4.1 Fast	2	3	0	5
Mistral Small	3	0	0	3
DeepSeek V4 Flash	0	2	0	2
Llama 4 Maverick	1	2	0	3
Qwen 3.7 Flash	2	2	1	5
Kimi K2	2	0	0	2
GLM 4.7 FlashX	1	1	0	2
MiniMax M2.5	1	0	0	1

By framing

Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.

FramingLabels by classFirst choices

Direct13 labelsNone

Paraphrase8 labels1

Comparative18 labelsNone

Budget-constrained11 labels1

Scale-constrained7 labelsNone

Negative12 labels1not counted in share

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative69 labels in all, every segment counted; 2 of the 3 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.

What the models said for it

Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.

“Alternative/Developer Clouds (DigitalOcean, Akamai/Linode, Vultr): Best for standard web apps, databases, and general compute.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Cloud hosting · scale prompt · alternative

“Starting price: $5/month - Pros: Competitive pricing, reliable performance, good support” MiniMax M2.5 · Cloud hosting · budget prompt · alternative

“robust VPS infrastructure is now backed by one of the world's largest Content Delivery Networks” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Cloud hosting · comparative prompt · alternative

“It's a good option for companies that require a high level of distribution and performance.” Llama 4 Maverick · Cloud hosting · paraphrase prompt · alternative

And against it

Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.

“they're usually less ideal for a company that expects significant scaling, compliance needs, or complex enterprise requirements” GPT-5.4 mini · Cloud hosting · paraphrase prompt · soft negative

“They generally lack the heavy compliance auditing, advanced identity management (IAM), and global scale” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Cloud hosting · paraphrase prompt · soft negative

“*Note: These skew slightly smaller; ensure the provider meets your specific compliance audits.*” Qwen 3.7 Flash · Cloud hosting · direct prompt · soft negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as Akamai Connected Cloud, over the 68 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Akamai Connected Cloud was named but was not.

ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

DigitalOcean63 of 6819Not in the top three

Amazon Web Services63 of 6818Not in the top three

Google Cloud53 of 682Not in the top three

Vultr42 of 682Not in the top three

Microsoft Azure39 of 687Not in the top three

Azure24 of 680Not in the top three

Hetzner19 of 685Not in the top three

Cloudways12 of 681Not in the top three

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure12 of 681Not in the top three

OVHcloud12 of 680Not in the top three

A head-to-head page exists where both products are in a category's top three. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.

What carried it into the answer

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named Akamai Connected Cloud. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, four of the twelve in this edition, so these counts come from 44 of the 68 answers that named Akamai Connected Cloud and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

geekflare.com22

digitalocean.com20

atlantic.net17

forbes.com16

pcmag.com16

techradar.com16

hostingadvice.com15

dev.to14

reddit.com11

meridianitinc.com8

155 of the 155 domain citations in answers naming Akamai Connected Cloud came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

geekflare.com/hosting/best-cloud-hosting-platforms22

pcmag.com/picks/the-best-cloud-web-hosting-services15

forbes.com/advisor/business/software/best-cloud-hosting14

techradar.com/news/best-cloud-hosting-providers13

digitalocean.com/resources/articles/comparing-aws-azure-gcp11

dev.to/dkechag/cloud-provider-comparison-2024-vm-performance-price-3h4l9

atlantic.net/cloud-platform/best-cloud-hosting-providers-small-businesses8

atlantic.net/vps-hosting/how-to-find-the-top-cloud-hosting-providers8

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Names read as Akamai Connected Cloud

What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as Akamai Connected Cloud; a claim can dispute any of them.

Linode (Akamai) 13Linode 11Akamai/Linode 2Linode (now Akamai) 2Linode/Akamai 2Akamai Cloud (formerly Linode) 1Akamai Cloud Computing (formerly Linode) 1DigitalOcean/Linode 1Linode / Akamai Cloud 1

Is this your product?

Claim this page

Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when Akamai Connected Cloud's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as Akamai Connected Cloud, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

It does not get any change to labels, shares or verdicts, any preview, or any say over which quotes appear. A verification link goes to your work email; an address at akamai.com is approved on the spot, any other address is reviewed by hand.

Your name and company appear on the claimed page, or the company alone if you ask below. A title and a LinkedIn address appear there too if you give them, and are left off if you do not. Your email address is never published.