Not specific to HN, but if Akamai wants more buzz and discussion, all they need to do is introduce some small/hobby level plans with up-front pricing and no interaction with salespeople.

That's a fair point...though the bar for Akamai is a lot higher than that of CF as it relates to their customer base...let's just say when your clients include some of the most renowned companies in the world, top US government agencies, the US military...the people you let on your platform becomes a matter of concern.

The real barrier is the pricing. Don't bother talking to Akamai if you don't have one million dollar.

Big companies, government and military are the only ones which can afford it.

They'd use a registration form too, if there were one.

I see what you mean, but AWS has a similar client list, probably higher risks in that area than a CDN, and manages just fine.

And CloudFlare now does the same... but 1000 times more affordable.

That very much depends on what you need and your negotiating prowess. CloudFlare has public pricing for entry-level plans but once you're out of that range it's a traditional sales negotiation with both companies.

From actually talking to CF, they're still at least a magnitude less expensive than Akamai.

Nope. Akamai DSA for us was 50% the cost of CloudFlare Enterprise.

You just need to be good at negotiating.

Doesn't every major CDN do DSA-like stuff now? What does it offer you that Cloudflare's basic plans don't?

Nothing. We now use CloudFlare on the $200/month plan. :)

My point is more CloudFlare Enterprise vs Akamai.

The prices quoted to us for Enterprise were ridiculous. Sometimes when a vendor starts off with prices not even in the ballpark of Akamai there's no point even engaging.

For what it's worth, while CF is reasonable for DSA (haven't enabled Argo yet, so...) their performance is erratic.

Akamai/EdgeCast are more predictable because the Argo-like component is built in.

Not to mention CF cached content serving speeds aren't great. And they don't cache large files on non-Enterprise.

I think something like CF $200 plan plus Argo plus their load balancing product is very powerful and hard to beat. But you still need something to run your downloads from (you can get EdgeCast on a non commit month to month from Speedyrails for that or whatever -- CloudFront also a shitty option.)

Also, I hate dealing with sales people in general and I find CF sales people more irritating than usual. Akamai sales also suck. The nicest sales people I've ever dealt with were EdgeCast pre Verizon acquisition. Also Cotendo before Akamai.

It is universally applicable. Their pricing is order(s) of magnitude more affordable.

It's not a secret. Everyone who has to dealt with both of them knows that.

Please read the thread before replying: I'm not saying that wasn't true for you, only that it wasn't for me – hence my encouragement to shop around if this is a big deal for you.

No number of comments from random people on the internet is going to outweigh actual price quotes.

You are 100% wrong.