Akamai CDN

The additional features of Akamai (Account Protector, Bot Manager Premier, Malware Protection, Client Reputation) have been very helpful in blocking behavioral attacks such as fraud and account takeovers. We have built use cases around telemetry we have from these features and have successfully blocked malicious attempts. Additionally, Akamai's WAF, DDoS and Bot engines have been very helpful in a way that we do not need to be eyes-on-glass on web-based attacks since Akamai has already blocked them for us. The Web Security Analytics has also helped us in investigating incidents and has given us important information that helped us in verifying causes of blocking and/or issues.

The main strength is reliability at scale. It handles high traffic volumes and peak trading periods without drama, which is essential in retail. Its global network footprint is strong and gives confidence around performance consistency. Security capabilities are also well established, particularly around DDoS protection and edge controls. Once configured properly, it's a stable and dependable part of the infrastructure stack.

Edgeworkers has had a huge impact, by using it to eliminate some round-trips we've sped up some processes improving UX for our end-users. Also simply the scalability & resilience of the CDN. From day 1, we've been able to fully trust Akamai to absorb any traffic spikes we experience. For huge launches, events or even DDoS attacks, we've never experienced any impact upstream. It also provides very fine-grained control in the property manager if needed, for example manipulating headers or cookies is easy to do.

1. Professional Support hours - One thing I dislike is that this service is too expensive. Every interaction we have with them entails professional support hours and we cannot be too reliant on them. 2. Fine Tuning/Maintenance - There are a lot of features that needs to be maintained on regular basis (WAF, Bot Protection, DDoS rules, Custom Rules, Account Protector etc.). This leads to point number 1 wherein maintenance of these features will also entail getting help from Professional Services. 3. Integration - Integration can be difficult especially for BMP, Account Protector and Malware Protection. Each application is built different and there is no straightforward way of integrating/onboarding every application to the platform. This also leads to point number 1 wherein if there are any challenges, we will need to consult Professional Services.

The platform can feel complex and somewhat dated in terms of interface and configuration model. It isn't especially intuitive for non-specialists, and the most meaningful changes require experienced technical resources. Compared to newer CDN providers, it doesn't always feel as developer-friendly or feature-forward in areas like edge flexibility and rapid experimentation. There can also be a sense that it's built around enterprise processes rather than speed and agility.

Clunky UI, lots of our developers often don't know exactly where to find certain settings or configurations. The deployment can sometimes take quite a while, and when a misconfiguration is deployed it takes a long time to fix that. Observability data seems to be delayed sometimes, which when debugging can be a pain. The learning curve is quite steep for some people, you need to learn some basic Akamai jargon, like what CP codes are etc., before you can be productive with the product.