Edge Development Platforms Go Mainstream: Forrester Recognizes Cloudflare, Akamai, and Amazon Web Services

In Forrester’s Q1 2026 evaluation of Edge Development Platforms, analysts emphasize a fundamental shift in enterprise architecture. Organizations are no longer optimizing only for cloud migration — they are optimizing for workload affinity, placing compute and logic as close as possible to users, data, and AI interactions.

Edge platforms are now described as the “happy path” for engineering teams building experience-centric, latency-sensitive, and AI-driven applications.

Among the vendors evaluated, three Softprom strategic partners stand out:

Cloudflare — Leader

Cloudflare’s platform offers a globally distributed execution model on points of presence (POPs). Cloudflare focuses on developer experience, global reach, and integration with its global network.

Forrester positions Cloudflare as a Leader thanks to:

• Exceptional developer experience via Cloudflare Workers
• Zero cold starts and automatic global workload placement
• Strong vision for AI-driven development, including AI Gateway and agent-first ecosystem
• 100% uptime SLA and global default deployment model

Forrester notes Cloudflare as an ideal fit for organizations building edge-first APIs, applications, and AI workloads where performance and proximity are critical.

Akamai Technologies — Strong Performer

Akamai offers a deeply distributed platform that blends edge functions, global traffic shaping, and core compute into a broad edge-to-cloud architecture. It recently acquired Fermyon and is in the process of integrating its technologies across the platform.

Akamai is recognized for its:

• Massive global footprint: 4,300+ edge locations and 41 core cloud regions
• Deep integration of security (WAF, bot management, Firewall for AI)
• Integration of Fermyon Wasm technology enabling sub-millisecond execution
• Strong workload flexibility via EdgeWorkers, EdgeKV, and distributed containers

Forrester highlights Akamai as a top choice for planet-scale, performance- and security-sensitive workloads.

Amazon Web Services — Contender

Amazon Web Services (AWS) supports edge computing as an extension of its cloud ecosystem with products like CloudFront Functions and Lambda@Edge, which push portions of the Lambda model closer to users.

AWS is evaluated as a Contender, with edge capabilities delivered through:

• CloudFront Functions
• Lambda@Edge

Forrester notes AWS as a natural fit for enterprises already deeply invested in AWS who want to extend familiar cloud-native workflows to the edge, though it lacks the unified developer experience of specialized edge platforms.

What This Means for Enterprises

The report makes a key conclusion:

Edge development platforms are becoming the primary interface for building responsive, sovereign, and cost-efficient software.

This is especially relevant for:

• AI-driven applications
• Real-time web and mobile experiences
• Latency-sensitive services
• Distributed APIs and business logic
• Security-critical workloads

Softprom Expertise

As an official partner of Cloudflare, Akamai, and AWS, Softprom helps organizations design the right edge strategy based on workload type, performance needs, and security requirements. You can read the full report at this link.