7 Cloudflare Competitors And Alternatives
Cloudflare is one of the most prominent and reliable CDN that helps visitors to access a website quickly. Besides increasing speed, the company provides many other services to improve website security and limit downtime.
We have compiled a list of a few top Cloudflare alternatives and the best competitors offering services, infrastructure, and security systems like Cloudflare. Some of these best alternatives to Cloudflare are well- known like Akamai, and others are like hidden gems.
Let us first discuss what exactly Cloudflare is doing and providing and what this Cloudflare open-source alternative has to offer too.
What is Cloudflare and why is it important?
Cloudflare CDN is a Content Delivery Network using a group of servers distributed in multiple locations to ensure fast internet content delivery. Content distribution networks have many data centers worldwide to provide high availability by distributing the service locally to end users.
Cloudflare was founded in 2009 in California and quickly gained popularity due to its well-built services. It is one of the most prominent and reliable choices for many webmasters and website owners.
A CDN is an intermediate point for your website to reach the nearest server. The website’s content is obtained through the server cache and sends a request to load. Then, it waits for response time to determine each user’s website’s loading time.
Thus, webmasters use Cloudflare to improve the performance of their websites, but that’s not it. Cloudflare also provides many Internet security measures to the webmaster, so their website stays safe and ranks among the best.
Cloudflare Services
Cloudflare has many packages that include free tools for webmasters and a few monthly tool and service paid packages. From low prices to high, Cloudflare comes with a complete guide and open tool for your website’s performance.
Here are a few tools and services that Cloudflare provide to their users:
- Content delivery network
- Cloud web application Firewall
- Data Caching
- DDoS security
- DNS
- Load balancing
- Live to stream
- SSL
Why you may need an Alternative to Cloudflare
Cloudflare is one of the best website service providers and helps with ranking and performance. But depending on your user’s locations, web host, and budget, you may want to consider another service provider.
Best Alternative to Cloudflare
We have compiled a list of the best alternative to Cloudflare for you to consider if you are facing a traffic issue or any service availability issues for the price point given. These alternatives to Cloudflare include some premium and free, so you can choose from a wide range of alternatives.
Akamai
Akamai is one of the oldest IT service providers and was founded in Cambridge in 1998. It became one of Cloudflare’s biggest competitors, especially in cybersecurity. Akamai uses many security systems like Kona Site defender that protect the site from Multiple bot attacks and DDoS. It is an excellent choice to keep your website free from threats.
Akamai handles sudden traffic spikes and prevents your website from crashing. It controls around 15 to 30 percent of the traffic all around the globe. Akamai’s pricing is competitive since they offer a free trial and multiple paid plans that can meet your needs.
Features
Akamai offers free services such as:
- Threat monitoring and control
- DDoS and Bot attacks Security
- Traffic and load balancing
- Web application firewall
Imperva
Imperva is another Cloudflare alternative offering outstanding services. It was founded as a software company in 2002 and later started to provide IT services, including the master website services like DNS, firewall, and many more. Imperva has many webmaster service packages, from a 30-days free trial to low and premium, and it is a very reliable source for you to try.
Features
Following are the services Imperva provides for websites are:
- Content Caching
- Content delivery network
- Name server protection
- DDoS security
- Load balancing
- Web application Firewall
Haproxy
Haproxy is a well-known Cloudflare open-source alternative. Surprisingly, the Haproxy was introduced in 2001, way before Cloudflare since it lacked in few services then, the popularity of Cloudflare overcame it. Haproxy has now become a reliable and accessible service source for many website owners and developers.
Haproxy is one of the best TCP and HTTP applications sending requests to multiple servers to improve loading time.
Features
Following are the services it provides to webmasters:
- Firewall
- Load balancing
- Proxy
- Reverse Proxy
- HTTPS Support
Fastly
Fastly as the name suggests, is a fast and complete IT solution for webmasters and stands as a reliable Cloudflare competitor. It was founded in 2011 in California. Fastly primarily offers services to enhance your website security and speed. Besides offering CDN, they have expanded their expertise into many website maintenance services over the years.
Fastly is highly flexible, and you pay for what you use (cost per bandwidth). They have clear pricing plans with no hidden fees.
Here are the Website services they are providing at the moment:
- CDN
- Data Caching
- Live Real-time streaming
- Instant configuration and updates
- Streaming Content delivery
- WAF
- Firewall and traffic spike protection
Amazon CloudFront
Amazon CloudFront is a successful product under AWS, the largest growing company offering many web tools and services. Amazon CloudFront and Cloudflare are two excellent choices to speed up your website.
Amazon CloudFront is a CDN operated by AWS (Amazon Web Services). Amazon CloudFront helps websites distribute dynamic and static content quickly using proxy servers that cache content.
It is highly effective since Amazon Web Services has one of the larger numbers of servers (87 availability zones in 27 geographic regions worldwide).
You can get started for free by exploring their free-tier products. Pricing may vary by region, and it is possible to benefit from a custom price according to your traffic size.
Amazon CloudFront Features
Following are the excellent services It is offering in its multiple tools and services plans:
- DNS
- DDoS attack security
- Data Caching
- Data delivery Network
- Traffic and Load balancing
- Firewall
- Traffic spike protection
Sucuri
Securi has provided website protection and security since 2009. They help you focus on producing content and growing your online presence by keeping your website fast and secure.
Like Akamai, Sucuri primary expertise is in cybersecurity rather than CDN. Sucuri is one of the best alternatives to Cloudflare DDoS protection if your web host has a built-in CDN.
But they also have a top-performing CDN that can increase your website speed by 70%. Their built-in network performs automatic website caching. They only offer annual billing for all their services and products.
Features
Here are the services they will gladly provide:
- DDoS protection
- CDN
- Firewall
- Website monitoring
- Malware protection
- XSS Javascript blockers from hacking
- SQL injection monitoring
StackPath
StackPath is a well-known edge computing platform providing CDN and webmaster security plans. It was founded in 2015 and has acquired many extraordinary IT service providers like MaxCDN and Highwinds to become a complete home to IT and cybersecurity services.
StackPath is one of the highly responsive platforms that provide extensive API documentation for your site. They have reasonable prices and a free trial. StackPath is among Cloudflare competitors that do not compromise on security.
Features
Here is a list of services they are providing:
- CDN
- Data caching
- DDoS protection
- Real-time performance Analytics
- WAF protection
- Firewall
- Traffic balancing
Conclusion
Many IT services available stand as the best service for many of us. Cloudflare has set the bar of being a reliable source of It and cybersecurity services for webmasters. Still, many prominent competitors and alternatives to Cloudflare are worth trying.
We hope that these Cloudflare competitors will set right to your goals and makes the decision regarding your website performance and security a bit easier.
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