IT AI Index

Index › Vendors › Akamai · September 2026 Edition

3 categories · Ranked

Akamai

194Judge labels

19First choices

58Negative labels

12 of 12Models named it

3Categories

September 2026 Edition. Every number here is derived from the raw labels under vendor table vv2026-09.2, every buyer segment counted.

Best standing

35% in CDN for enterprise buyers

Rank 10 of 40 in the mid-market standingcriticized challenger

0 of 12 models made it the first choice on the direct prompt; 40% of its 42 labels there were negative.

By buyer segmentAn enterprise product: leader at enterprise, not named at small business or mid-market.

Small business30 of 30

criticized challenger

Mid-market10 of 40

criticized challenger

Enterprise2 of 39

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
Content delivery networks	Network and edge	0%	10 of 40	40%	42	criticized challenger
Web application firewalls	Network and edge	0%	11 of 87	27%	22	criticized challenger
SASE platforms	Network and edge	0%	24 of 43	0%	1	under 10 labels · led by Cato SASE Cloud at 28%

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for Akamai 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 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	4	2	1	7
GPT-5.4 mini	4	0	0	4
Gemini 3.5 Flash	2	0	2	4
Perplexity Sonar	3	0	1	4
Grok 4.1 Fast	1	2	4	7
Mistral Small	1	3	1	5
DeepSeek V4 Flash	2	2	4	8
Llama 4 Maverick	1	2	0	3
Qwen 3.7 Flash	2	1	2	5
Kimi K2	2	0	2	4
GLM 4.7 FlashX	3	2	5	10
MiniMax M2.5	2	1	1	4

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

Direct38 labels8

Paraphrase37 labels11

Comparative38 labels9not counted in share

Budget-constrained15 labelsNone

Scale-constrained32 labelsNone

Negative34 labels1not counted in share

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative194 labels in all, every segment counted; 19 of the 29 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.

“Akamai if you're a larger organization or have very demanding global traffic, compliance, or enterprise governance needs” GPT-5.4 mini · WAF · paraphrase prompt · alternative

“(e.g., Cloudflare, Akamai, Fastly, or Imperva) that use behavioral analysis, machine learning, and semantic analysis” Gemini 3.5 Flash · WAF · negative prompt · alternative

“Stick to established Tier-1 and Tier-2 CDNs or Security Providers (Cloudflare, Akamai, Fastly, Incapsula).” Qwen 3.7 Flash · WAF · negative prompt · alternative

“Prefer large, transparent providers with SLAs, status pages, and strong security track records (Akamai...)” DeepSeek V4 Flash · CDN · negative 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 jumping straight to Akamai or other enterprise-tier CDNs unless you have truly global enterprise needs” DeepSeek V4 Flash · CDN · paraphrase prompt · hard negative

“Why Not Akamai or Enterprise F5 for Mid-Market? ... you're paying for capacity you don't need.” Kimi K2 · WAF · paraphrase prompt · hard negative

“What to Avoid... it is generally overkill for a mid-sized B2B company” Gemini 3.5 Flash · CDN · paraphrase prompt · hard negative

“Akamai is enterprise-only, with high minimum commitments” GLM 4.7 FlashX · CDN · budget prompt · hard negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as Akamai, over the 194 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.

ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

Cloudflare171 of 19490Not in the top three

Fastly125 of 1942Not in the top three

Amazon CloudFront103 of 1942Not in the top three

Imperva60 of 1944Not in the top three

AWS WAF51 of 1944Not in the top three

Bunny.net50 of 1945Not in the top three

Google Cloud CDN41 of 1940Not in the top three

F520 of 1941Not in the top three

KeyCDN19 of 1942Not in the top three

Azure CDN17 of 1940Not 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. 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 148 of the 194 answers that named Akamai and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

blog.blazingcdn.com78

fastly.com66

yewsafe.com39

wafplanet.com33

cyberpress.org31

cybersecuritynews.com29

edgenext.com29

expertinsights.com29

g2.com29

openappsec.io29

392 of the 392 domain citations in answers naming Akamai came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

blog.blazingcdn.com/en-us/top-cdn-providers-2025-an-expert-guide-to-types-technologies-and33

cyberpress.org/waf-solutions-by-business-size31

fastly.com/blog/best-cdn-providers31

blog.blazingcdn.com/en-us/the-best-cdns-in-2026-compared-by-speed-price-and-global-coverag28

expertinsights.com/network-security/the-top-web-application-firewalls28

blog.blazingcdn.com/en-us/best-enterprise-cdn-providers-compared26

yewsafe.com/blog/177622396386526

broadbandnow.com/guides/CDN-Providers24

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

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 (Akamai Enterprise Application Access + Security Cloud) 1Akamai/Imperva WAF 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'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.

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.