Cloudflare fronts the apex via DNS. NetDNA is a dedicated CDN hostname (cdn.example.com) with pull/push/VOD/live. Use Cloudflare for DNS/WAF on the site itself; use NetDNA for asset CDN and video.
NetDNA advantages for this comparison
- Dedicated pull, push, VOD and live zones rather than a single proxy.
- EdgeCaching for Platforms and CDNManager if you resell CDN.
- EdgeSSL, EdgeRules, EdgeSecurity and EdgeReporting as named products.
- REST API with OAuth, PHP/Ruby/Python/Perl SDKs and CMS plugins.
- Published 2013 bandwidth table starting at $800/month.
When Cloudflare is the better default
Stay on Cloudflare if your team already operates that stack, your contract is locked, or you need a feature NetDNA did not ship in 2013 (for example Cloudflare Workers or CloudFront Functions). NetDNA is the better fit when you want a CDN, not a full edge compute platform.
Next: read the full comparison hub, EdgeCaching, or request a quote.
Proxy vs dedicated CDN
Cloudflare fronts the apex by changing nameservers. NetDNA is a dedicated hostname (cdn.example.com) in front of assets, video and downloads. Many 2013 customers ran both: Cloudflare on HTML, NetDNA on /wp-content and media.
| NetDNA | Cloudflare | |
|---|---|---|
| DNS role | Optional Anycast for the CDN name | Authoritative DNS + proxy |
| HTML | Usually origin | Often cached / proxied |
| Assets | Pull / push zones | Cache everything |
| Video | VOD + live zones | Stream (later product) |
The Science of Acceleration