Akamai vs JW Player | TrustRadius

What users are saying about

Score 8 out of 10

Based on 41 reviews and ratings

Score 7.7 out of 10

Based on 13 reviews and ratings

Feature Rating Comparison

Akamai

JW Player

Support for advertisements

Video SEO

Akamai

JW Player

Video access controls

User management

Video link sharing

External video

Akamai

JW Player

Player customization

Embedded videos

Video quality / Bandwidth controls

Mobile compatibility

Akamai

JW Player

Per viewer tracking

Per video tracking

Video analytics dashboard

Akamai

JW Player

On-Demand video

Live streaming

Video upload & format support

Video library / File management

Video portal

Pros

Content offloading - once rules are set up within Akamai you don't need to even think about how many images or large JavaScript or CSS files (for example) are being served from your own estate, Akamai takes care of it all via rules that are quick, easy and flexible.
Page caching - for pages that don't change very often Akamai allows you to set up rules, quickly and easily, to serve up your page content for you, which takes even more load away from your origin servers.
Quick rollback - the Akamai system allows easy testing of rules and changes via a staging system, and also offers a quick rollback option, which is perfect for the rare occasions when something has been set up incorrectly.

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Airlines/Aviation Company, 5001-10,000 employees

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Responsive HTML5
Provides share functionality built into the player
Platform use enables playlist functionality and playlist players which can be customized or versioned for specific uses
Videos uploaded to the JW Platform automatically provide multiple image frame options for selecting video thumbnail

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Chief Executive Officer

Motion Media SolutionsMedia Production, 1-10 employees

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Cons

The interface in their control centre could be a bit more user-friendly with some of the settings in places that you wouldn't expect them to be. The search offsets this problem to an extent but it's still sometimes slower than you'd like to find what you are looking for.

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Developer

M and M DirectRetail, 501-1000 employees

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Definitely missing the ability (in and easy way) to have clickable links in the video.
Analytics is a little cumbersome and not very user-friendly.

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Digital & Video Specialist

Allured Business MediaPublishing, 11-50 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

JW Player 10.0

Based on 1 answer

Just made the decision to renew given demonstrated improvements being made to the platform to expand compatibility for its player use on devices such as Apple TV, as well as improvements made recently to its JW Platform Dashboard

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Chief Executive Officer

Motion Media SolutionsMedia Production, 1-10 employees

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Usability

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

JW Player 9.0

Based on 1 answer

Reliability and compatibility on a majority of platforms. Would have received a 10 except recent versions of browsers such as Firefox are now defaulting against Flash components and thus prompting approval from users BEFORE loading which is a HUGE obstacle to an effective user experience thus creating concerns by end-users unnecessarily and risking that they will NOT accept the prompts, thus leaving unable to view video content hosted using the JW Player. Assurances by JW support suggest they will resolve this, so we'll see...

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Chief Executive Officer

Motion Media SolutionsMedia Production, 1-10 employees

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Support Rating

Akamai 8.5

Based on 4 answers

Their support documents are excellent and provide a lot of useful information for all their services. The only reason I didn't give them a 10 is that the time it takes for them to respond to an issue could be slightly faster.

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Verified User

Employee in Information Technology

Airlines/Aviation Company, 10,001+ employees

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JW Player 7.0

Based on 2 answers

Support is reasonable. I from time to time have made suggestions on improvements that would be nice to see (like the ability to have a clickable link within the video - that is easy to create, without tons of coding) and it seems as though I never see it happen or get much response to "suggestions" to upgrade the software. The good news, other than a few things as I mentioned above, overall, I don't have many "technical issues" in the platform, which is a good thing. On occasion, I have seen some "issues" with the delivery of the video, but it has been pretty scarce. So it is dependable.

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Digital & Video Specialist

Allured Business MediaPublishing, 11-50 employees

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Implementation Rating

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

JW Player 7.0

Based on 1 answer

One of the primary features promoted by JW Platform is its SEO definition. However, there did not seem to be a way to integrate that data to our platform if selected thus only leaving the benefits of that data to be established on the individual video page hosted by JW Platform, which isn't useful in the end to the client value we are trying to deliver for our VideoproFile.net solution

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Chief Executive Officer

Motion Media SolutionsMedia Production, 1-10 employees

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Alternatives Considered

We've used -- and considered -- a whole number of CDN offerings. The good news is that almost all of the CDN products on the market are terrific, and will pay for themselves via increased customer satisfaction and lower monthly hosting bills. For some cases, we're still more likely to suggest CloudFlare (which has a free tier) or an integrated offering from a cloud provider, like Cloudfront.

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Director of Engineering

NorthOutComputer Software, 51-200 employees

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JW had more player options, a better/more intuitive user interface, was altogether faster both in rendering the uploaded videos and in time to load on the web page. The integration with OpenX for pre-roll was faster and easier than with Brightcove, and lastly, they offered a great price for service.

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Director, Online Advertising and Operations

PlaybillPublishing, 51-200 employees

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Return on Investment

Akamai RoI improved over a period of times since it comes with heavy costs, however global deliveries in over 100 counties and global web platforms usage helps improve RoI
With the complex UI challenges, ROI could be impacted negatively when you have to invest in operations and time.

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Senior Product Manger, Digital Commerce

Dell TechnologiesComputer Hardware, 51-200 employees

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JW Player has was less expensive (without sacrificing quality) than our previous video platform so the ROI was instant.
We were easily able to add a variety of video advertising options including pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll.
The quality and consistancy of the look of the video has enabled us to grow our video views by well over 100% since starting with JW.

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Director of Video Content

Forum CommunicationsMedia Production, 1001-5000 employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Rating Summary

Akamai

JW Player

Akamai

JW Player

Akamai

JW Player

Akamai

JW Player

Akamai

JW Player

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