Akamai
Akamai is global content delivery network (CDN) services provider for media and software delivery, and cloud security solutions.
What detecting Akamai tells you about a site
Akamai is the incumbent enterprise CDN and edge-security platform, and it sits in front of the origin rather than in the page. You detect it from response headers it injects — values referencing AkamaiGHost, an X-Akamai-* family, or akamai appearing in a Server/Via line — and from asset hostnames on akamaized.net/akamaihd.net. Spotting it tells you the site is large enough to buy premium edge delivery and WAF coverage: banks, media giants, government and Fortune-500 retail are the typical buyers. It rarely shows up on small sites, so its presence alone implies scale and a dedicated infrastructure team.
Akamai in a real-world stack
When you find Akamai, it rarely travels alone. Often layered with an enterprise origin stack (Java/.NET) and other Akamai products — Bot Manager, Image Manager — behind the same edge.
About
Akamai is global content delivery network (CDN) services provider for media and software delivery, and cloud security solutions.
Categories: CDN
Quick facts
Detection methodology for CDN
CDN detection runs against response headers (`cf-ray` for Cloudflare, `x-amz-cf-id` for CloudFront, `x-served-by` for Fastly, `x-cache` for Akamai) and asset hostnames in the page's resource tree. The same site can sit behind multiple CDNs (an edge cache in front of an origin CDN); we surface each one separately so the layered architecture is visible.
How we detect Akamai
Sourcemap Explorer carries 3 fingerprint signals for Akamai, spread across 1 channel — response header. The exact patterns are listed below, and you can replay each one in Chrome DevTools to confirm a match by hand.
Each signal alone is rarely conclusive — Sourcemap Explorer cross-references all of them and weights by confidence. You can reproduce any of these checks yourself in Chrome DevTools.
Server-side fingerprint: the response header reveals the technology behind the page. Visible in DevTools → Network → response headers.
X-Akamai-Transformed:
X-EdgeConnect-MidMile-RTT:
X-EdgeConnect-Origin-MEX-Latency:
FAQ
How do I check if a website is using Akamai?
Open the page in Chrome, click the Sourcemap Explorer toolbar icon, and read the Stack tab. Akamai's specific fingerprints here are response header, and the popup flags Akamai whenever any combination of them is found. The same checks can be reproduced manually in DevTools — see the "How we detect" section above.
What Akamai version can Sourcemap Explorer detect?
Akamai ships as a hosted cdn rather than a bundled npm package, so version-specific detection isn't always possible. Where the platform leaks a version in response headers (`X-Powered-By`, `Server`, generator meta tags) we surface it; otherwise we report presence only.
Is Akamai a SaaS or self-hosted?
Akamai is offered as a hosted SaaS product. Detection runs against the JavaScript SDK or asset-URL fingerprints the platform ships into pages.
How much does Akamai cost?
Akamai's pricing model is documented as: poa. Detection is independent of the pricing tier — Sourcemap Explorer flags the technology by its fingerprints, regardless of which paid plan a site is on. See the official site for the current pricing page.
Where can I read more about Akamai?
Official site: https://akamai.com. For Sourcemap Explorer's detection guide, see the deep-dive link below or the related guides in the cross-link section.
Keep reading on Sourcemap Explorer
Practical guides
Alternative tools
Detected by Sourcemap Explorer
Open the popup on any page running Akamaiand you'll see the exact version pulled from the bundled package.json when sourcemaps are exposed.