Akamai CDN vs. StreamShark Live Streaming Platform

Akamai is a well-established brand name with a great product. It meets and many time exceeds the needs for global content delivery and security management layer at the edge. Fine grain security tuning seems cumbersome as the definition of the app keeps changing. It also requires an investment of time for the setup which doesn't necessarily make sense for smaller scale scenarios. Some products offered by AWS, Azure or the Google Cloud can be more tightly integrated with cloud provider offerings thus easier to configure.

Incentivized

For internal communications such as Town Halls, StreamShark is a perfect solution. StreamShark provides the necessary security needed for private companies as well as a tried and true viewing experience for the end user.

• 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.

Incentivized

• StreamShark has an excellent live support model, which gives us real-time support on live stream productions. Another feature we like is the Okta SSO integration. This makes it simple to manage access to the videos and streams.
• Our account manager, James Broberg, is an absolute pleasure to work with. He clearly has our goals in mind when he suggests the new features in our bi-weekly meeting.
• Additionally, the StreamShark support team, namely, Yudong, Robert, and Aakanksha drive our requests to completion in a timely manner.
• The look and feel of the GUI is user-friendly.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Channel support (see YouTube channels).
• More Webinar options, i.e. polls and attendance.
• Better reporting (see Zoom, i.e. advanced attendance logs, attention tracking).

The StreamShark Live Streaming Platform's easy-to-use. There are a few features that require learning, but this is expected.

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.

Incentivized

The customer support from StreamShark is exceptional. Always very responsive and quick resolution which is often needed just before an event goes live.

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.

Incentivized

I had been researching different virtual event s and streaming platforms and kept coming up against the same problems. They either couldn't be branded, the signup flow added friction and would have caused drop off, or quality of the stream was poor. It was also important that I was able to get data and analytics from the stream. This meant that embedded YT live was out of the question because embedded YT don't always count the views. StreamShark Live Streaming Platform allowed for a solve for all of these problems.

• 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.

Incentivized

• This service has positively impacted the organization by allowing larger audiences to receive information and act on said information in a more timely manner. This equates to more productivity around the organization, as initiatives and objectives can be efficiently shared with remote attendees in all of our different office locations.

Incentivized