Cloudflare vs. IBM NS1 Connect

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cloudflare
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Cloudflare, from the company of the same name in San Francisco, provides DDoS and bot mitigation security for business domains, as well as a content delivery network (CDN) and web application firewall (WAF).
$20
per month
IBM NS1 Connect
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
IBM NS1 Connect is a managed service for authoritative DNS and traffic steering designed to improve application performance and network resilience.N/A
Pricing
CloudflareIBM NS1 Connect
Editions & Modules
Pro
$20
per month
Business
$200
per month
Free
Free
Enterprise
Contact sales team
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
CloudflareIBM NS1 Connect
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
CloudflareIBM NS1 Connect
Considered Both Products
Cloudflare
Chose Cloudflare
We use Cloudflare where we don't want to spend a lot of money, and can live with not so fast DNS speeds. NS1 is used when you need the top performance with the the DNS. Cloudflare has far more other features for which it is used alongside with NS1 as well.
IBM NS1 Connect

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
CloudflareIBM NS1 Connect
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

Cloudflare
Cloudflare
Score 8.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
BIG-IP
BIG-IP
Score 8.8 out of 10
Cloudflare
Cloudflare
Score 8.8 out of 10
Enterprises
BIG-IP
BIG-IP
Score 8.8 out of 10
Google Cloud DNS
Google Cloud DNS
Score 8.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
CloudflareIBM NS1 Connect
Likelihood to Recommend
8.6
(159 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.8
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.5
(8 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.5
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.5
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.4
(128 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.7
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.5
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
CloudflareIBM NS1 Connect
Likelihood to Recommend
Cloudflare
It is easy to set up, and within 10 minutes it is up and running. You can add many domains in one dashboard. So no need for a separate Cloudflare account. I can access all my domain DNS, and customize/add it further. For example by adding the Google Webmaster DNS key or my email provider.
Read full review
IBM
NS1 is well suited for large/mid-enterprise customers that really care about the reliability of the overall infrastructure, enhanced end-user application experience, and security. Less appropriate for small-scale enterprise customers
Read full review
Pros
Cloudflare
  • Registrar and DNS services are impeccable, with registrations done at cost and without ADs. DNS services setting standards for speed of resolution.
  • DDOS protection. With their content distribution network to back them they have the bandwidth and tools to be both proactive and reactive to bad actors.
  • WAF - Their Web Application Firewall helps mitigate common site vulnerabilities and has active zero-day protection running for breaking exploits
Read full review
IBM
  • Dedicated DNS
  • Specialized routing for mainland China
  • redundant failover system
Read full review
Cons
Cloudflare
  • In some cases, using Cloudflare can actually lead to slower website speeds if the network is congested or if the website's traffic is particularly heavy.
  • Some website owners may find that the level of customization offered by Cloudflare is limited, especially in comparison to other solutions.
  • While Cloudflare is easy to set up and manage, it may be too complex for users who are not familiar with web technologies.
Read full review
IBM
No answers on this topic
Likelihood to Renew
Cloudflare
lower cost
Read full review
IBM
No answers on this topic
Usability
Cloudflare
Everything is extremely concise and all settings apply immediately and take effect globally. There is no reason to explicitly plan/think in terms of individual regions as one would have to traditional cloud offerings (AWS, OCI, Azure). All Cloudflare products integrate seamless as part of a single pipeline that executes from request to response.
Read full review
IBM
No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
Cloudflare
In 6+ years of relying on Cloudflare, I think we experienced one or two brief outages that were Cloudflare's fault.
Read full review
IBM
No answers on this topic
Performance
Cloudflare
Their Argo for the global network is the core feature we love.
Read full review
IBM
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Cloudflare
We really like to talk to a person on the phone or using chat. But the system is very slow and sending to much email to get the issue solve. Something we don't like to spend time writing on the community forum our issue because we don't want to share detail information of our POC.
Read full review
IBM
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Cloudflare
Very well executed implementation where our team was able to handle the implementation with guidance.
Read full review
IBM
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Cloudflare
Firebase can be a good starter for basic projects but as I scaled up, I found it lacking the maturity Cloudflare has. Naturaly, I opted for Cloudflare for bigger projects. I still use Firebase, but for small scale hobby projects only.
Read full review
IBM
Support for Terraform integration is great with NS1. NS1 has Easy to use UX interface. Logically laid out and solid API interface with through documentation
Read full review
Scalability
Cloudflare
They are built for scale and have the capacity to handle all the traffic we could ever expect to get.
Read full review
IBM
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Cloudflare
  • A lot of requests are cached and so egress costs from downstream providers are mitigated.
  • DDoS protection has also managed to keep our site up and our cloud computing bill down.
  • Setting up a proxy with a worker made putting various Google Cloud Functions running behind a single URL very easy and performant. Plus they offer API Shield on top of this.
Read full review
IBM
  • Enhanced end-user experience as a result of better performance & uptime
  • Easy management - resulting in cutting down in operations cost
Read full review
ScreenShots