Small business=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
0%from 0% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 11 pointsRank 28 → 43 of 43
Akamai · 4 categories · RankedAkamai
169Judge labels
16First choices
54Negative labels
14 / 14Models named it
4Categories
October 2026 Edition. Every number here is derived from the raw labels under vendor table v2026-10.8, every buyer segment counted.
Best standing
31% in CDN for enterprise buyers
Rank 6 of 49 in the mid-market standingcriticized challenger
0 of 14 models made it the first choice on the direct prompt; 38% of its 48 labels there were negative.
What the models named instead of Akamai →By buyer segmentAn enterprise product: leader at enterprise, not named at small business.
Small business44 of 44
0%20 labels
criticized challenger
Mid-market6 of 49
2%48 labels
criticized challenger
Enterprise2 of 45
31%69 labels
endorsed leader
In cdn · each standing computed within its segment · bars are 0 to 100 · the accent bar is the product's own best reading
Standing by category
Every category where a model named Akamai 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 | Since September 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Content delivery networks | Network and edge | 2% | 6 of 49 | 38% | 48 | criticized challenger | ▲+2Since September 2026: 0% → 2%, +2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked. |
| Client-side protection | Security operations | 0% | 118 of 120 | 50% | 6 | under 10 labels · led by cside at 13% | |
| Microsegmentation | Network and edge | 0% | 59 of 94 | 0% | 1 | under 10 labels · led by ColorTokens Xshield at 25% | |
| SASE platforms | Network and edge | 0% | 27 of 45 | 0% | 1 | under 10 labels · led by Cato Networks at 35% | =heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked. |
Movement
Since September 2026, Akamai held within the floor in all four categories: no change cleared 11 points.
Best category · CDN · by segment
Mid-market▲+2Since September 2026: 0% → 2%, +2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
2%from 0% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 9 pointsRank 10 → 6 of 44
Enterprise▼−4Since September 2026: 35% → 31%, −4 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
31%from 35% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 7 pointsRank 2 of 43, unchanged
All categories · Mid-market
| Category | September 2026 | Now | Change | Reading | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CDN | 0% | 2% | ▲+2Since September 2026: 0% → 2%, +2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked. | Within noise | Rank 10 → 6 of 49 |
| Client-side protection | 0% | 0% | newNew since September 2026: not ranked then, 0% now. | New this edition | Rank 118 of 120, unchanged |
| Microsegmentation | 0% | 0% | newNew since September 2026: not ranked then, 0% now. | New this edition | Rank 59 of 94, unchanged |
| SASE | 0% | 0% | =heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked. | Within noise | Rank 23 → 27 of 45 |
Shares here are read over the models both editions asked, so they can differ by a point or two from the standing above, which counts every model in this edition.
The floor is 11 points of share, measured: how far the models move a leader on their own when the same questions are asked twice with nothing changed. A larger change is movement; a smaller one is noise, and both are shown. Movement is read over the twelve models both editions asked; GPT-6 Luna, Muse Glimmer 30B joined this edition and are in the standing but not yet in the comparison. How the floor is measured · The editions
By model
How each model treated Akamai across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.ShowHide
By model
How each model treated Akamai across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.
ShowHide| Model | First choice | Alternative | Mention | Negative | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 4 |
| Perplexity Sonar | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Grok 4.20 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 5 |
| Mistral Small | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 |
| Llama 4 Maverick | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 6 |
| Kimi K2 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 6 |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | 2 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 5 |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
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
Direct25 labels6
Paraphrase26 labels8
Comparative36 labels10not counted in share
Budget-constrained18 labels1
Scale-constrained29 labels1
Negative35 labels5not counted in share
First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative169 labels in all, every segment counted; 16 of the 31 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.
“One of the oldest and largest CDNs; handles ~30 %+ of internet traffic. ... Global scale & compliance: Akamai.” GLM 4.7 FlashX · CDN · comparative prompt · first choice
“I'd recommend evaluating Cloudflare, Fastly, Akamai, and CloudFront first” GLM 4.7 FlashX · CDN · 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 · CDN · direct prompt · alternative
“Enterprise global delivery and application-security requirements tend to go to Akamai, Cloudflare or CloudFront” Muse Glimmer 30B · CDN · comparative 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.
“Avoid: Enterprise solutions like Akamai, Imperva, or Feroot unless you have substantial budget” Kimi K2 · Client-side protection · budget prompt · hard negative
“Avoid enterprise ones (Akamai, Fastly) as they're pricier.” Grok 4.20 · CDN · budget prompt · hard negative
“Avoid—too pricey/complex for mid-market.” Grok 4.20 · CDN · 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 · CDN · scale prompt · soft negative
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as Akamai, over the 169 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Akamai was named but was not.ShowHide
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as Akamai, over the 169 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Akamai was named but was not.
ShowHideProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head
A head-to-head page exists where both products are among a category's top eight. 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. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.
Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, five of the fourteen in this edition, so these counts come from 148 of the 169 answers that named Akamai and are not a share of its labels.
Domains cited
blog.blazingcdn.com88
fastly.com66
cdnetworks.com43
linkedin.com33
broadbandnow.com31
g2.com30
edgenext.com28
cloudflare.com26
it-ai-index.com26
atlantic.net23
394 of the 394 domain citations in answers naming Akamai came from somebody else's page.
Pages cited
Pages are listed as the models cited them.
Search and answers
akamai.com ranks 7 on Google for the category's searches. In the answers, Akamai takes 2% of first choices and Cloudflare takes 68%.ShowHide
Search and answers
akamai.com ranks 7 on Google for the category's searches. In the answers, Akamai takes 2% of first choices and Cloudflare takes 68%.
ShowHideIn search
Google, US estimatesPosition for “cdn”
7
Position for “cdns”
–
not in the top ten
- Searches for its name, Google
- 27,100 a month (“akamai”)
- AI search demand for its name, est.
- 1,614 a month
- Organic visits to its site
- about 474,820 a month
- Searches its site ranks for
- 59,801 · 3,195 in the top three
- Sites linking to it
- 45,706
- Paid Google search
- 21 searches its ads show for, about 108 clicks and $2,159 a month (estimate)
In answers
This editionShare of first choices
2%
rank 6 of 49 in CDN
Segment leader
68%
Cloudflare
- First choices
- 16 across its categories
- Named in
- 169 answers
- Its own site cited
- in 148 of the answers that named it
Search figures are US estimates from DataForSEO, read September 28, 2026; AI search demand is its modeled, directional estimate, not a count of queries to any assistant. The answers are this edition's. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
What it publishes
ShowHide
What it publishes
ShowHideAddresses on akamai.com
10,000
subdomains included
Content
22
counted in the table below
Documentation
5,932
Product · Integration
0 · 0
| Kind | Pages | Last 90 days | 2025-10 to 2026-09 | Latest | Categories named |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Webinar or virtual event | 7 | undated | |||
| Comparison | 6 | undated | |||
| Glossary or explainer | 5 | undated | |||
| Conference or event | 2 | undated | |||
| Report or ebook | 2 | undated |
How it is countedHide how it is counted
Every page akamai.com exposes, subdomains included. Kind is read from the address and title. The last 90 days, the latest date and the twelve months count pages by when they were published, from the site's feeds, a date in the address, or the page's own publication date, read from up to a hundred of its most recently changed pages; a page that says only when it last changed is counted in its kind but not in when, so the recent counts are a floor, and a kind none of whose pages gives a publication date reads undated. An event counts as online when its address or title says so (webinar, on demand, virtual or online summit); a conference, summit, trade show, expo or roadshow that does not say so is counted as a conference or event, which on a vendor's site is mostly in person. Read September 29, 2026.
Names read as Akamai
What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as Akamai; a claim can dispute any of them.
Akamai Technologies 1
Follow Akamai
An email the morning each edition publishes: where this product moved, where it held, and by how much against the noise floor. One address, confirmed by a click; a stop link in every email.
Already following? Everything you follow, with a stop for each.
The company
Akamai is its own company.ShowHide
The company
Akamai is its own company.
ShowHideOn record
Company recordsIn its own words
Stated by the vendor, not checked- Positioning
- Akamai is the cybersecurity and cloud computing company that powers and protects business online.
- For
- business
- Price stated
- transparent pricing across every data center akamai.com
- Free plan or trial
- Free trials; US$100 in credits akamai.com
- Customers named
- Dun & BradstreetGoVeda
- Not stated on the pages read
- Starting price, integrations, certifications, hosting
What Akamai's own pages state, read September 28, 2026: akamai.com, trust.akamai.com. A claimed page can correct any of them.
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'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, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.
What a new claim receivesHide what a new claim receives
A new claim receives the current edition's vendor brief for Akamai by email, built from the raw record of the edition. It shows:
- where Akamai is named, by buyer and by framing, and which cells hold its first choices;
- the claims the models make when they name it, ranked, with the strongest and the weakest quoted;
- its vocabulary against the segment leader's, and the pages the models cited;
- who was chosen in the answers that did not name Akamai, and every reason the record gives;
- a battlecard for each top rival: the head-to-head split, why they win, and the reservation quoted against them;
- one page of published figures cleared to show a buyer.