Episode
The CDN Stocks Compared: Cloudflare vs. Akamai vs. Fastly | New Dashboard Preview
- Podcast
- Chip Stock Investor Podcast
- Published
- Aug 18, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 556
- Processing state
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Summary
CDNs have quietly become one of the most important layers of internet and AI infrastructure, moving everything from website traffic to large-scale AI data transfer. In this episode we compare the three public leaders — Cloudflare (NET), Akamai (AKAM), and Fastly (FSLY) — on revenue growth, gross margin, operating margin, free cash flow margin, and balance sheet strength. We also give you a first look at the new Chip Stock Investor research dashboard, launching in September at chipstockinvestor.com. The CDN comparison is the demo: everything you hear us pull up, you'll be able to run yourself. A few things that stood out: Cloudflare, another 30%+ quarter (33.5% growth) with net cash, but trading near 40x sales at a $110B+ market cap. Akamai is larger by revenue, but carrying $4.2B in net debt after an acquisition-led push into cloud infrastructure. Fastly, growth re-accelerated past 20%, putting the smallest of the three back in the value conversation. Full company-by-company research, valuation models, and portfolio allocation notes go live for Semiconductor Insider members in September: https://www.chipstockinvestor.com All our socials: https://linktr.ee/chipstockinvestor Chapters: (0:00) Why the CDN market matters for AI infrastructure (1:00) What a CDN actually does (3:00) How each company differentiates: security, compute, observability (3:45) Live dashboard: market cap and revenue (4:00) Revenue growth: Cloudflare's 33.5% vs. Akamai's slowdown (5:00) Margins that matter: gross, operating, free cash flow (6:00) Balance sheet: net cash vs. Akamai's $4.2B net debt (6:30) Long-term revenue trajectory (7:00) Cloudflare valuation: is 40x sales too rich? (8:00) Portfolio moves: trimming Cloudflare, Akamai's turnaround, Fastly's upside CSI owns shares of Cloudflare. Conte…