What Does GoDaddy Offer That Akamai Does Not?
Akamai Technologies (AKAM) and GoDaddy (GDDY) are both bought to capture the same trend: businesses paying for AI over the internet. Akamai sells the computing power for AI through its cloud infrastructure services. GoDaddy sells its AI tools, called Airo, to the small businesses that already buy its domains. One company is building new capacity, while the other sells from a platform it already runs. What did each company tell the market in its latest report?
What Akamai And GoDaddy Have Told Investors Since July
At the midpoint of its guidance range, Akamai management trimmed its full-year 2026 revenue forecast on August 6 to $4.488 billion, down from $4.498 billion projected in May. Management also said it expects overall revenue growth to accelerate into the low teens in 2027. More than $2.8 billion of multiyear commitments signed in 2026 back that expectation. On September 24, the company added that a customer agreed to an $11.6 billion, seven-year commitment for cloud services. This commitment arrived seven weeks after the 2027 forecast.
GoDaddy offered a different update on July 30. Management narrowed the company’s full-year 2026 revenue guidance to between $5.215 billion and $5.255 billion. This left the midpoint unchanged from April, and executives reaffirmed its free cash flow target of about $1.8 billion. Akamai pairs a slightly lower 2026 forecast with expectations for faster growth in 2027. GoDaddy presents a 2026 plan that remains intact.
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Akamai Spends On AI While GoDaddy Buys Back Shares
Akamai is paying for that growth up front. Management expects capital spending to reach about 40% of revenue in 2026. At the midpoint of the company’s guidance, this equals roughly $1.8 billion, about as much as GoDaddy expects to generate in free cash flow. Akamai raised $3.5 billion of zero-coupon convertible debt in May to help fund the build-out, even as it continued share repurchases, spending $410 million in the second quarter. Total debt at Akamai now stands at 74.0% of its market value, compared with 27.5% for GoDaddy.
Akamai reported an 11.9% operating margin over the four quarters to June 2026, down from 15.4% a year earlier. Management said the second-quarter results include expanded colocation investments and higher depreciation, taken on to fuel growth in its cloud infrastructure services.
GoDaddy’s operating margin moved the other direction, climbing to 25.2% over the same four quarters from 21.8% a year earlier. Rather than pausing buybacks, GoDaddy spent $554 million on its own shares in the second quarter.
How Akamai And GoDaddy Compare On Price And Growth
GoDaddy stock trades at 15.3 times its trailing earnings, compared with 30.7 times for Akamai. Revenue at GoDaddy grew 7.4% over the four quarters to June 2026, outpacing the 5.9% growth at Akamai. GoDaddy also grew faster on average across the last three such periods.
Akamai does offer a business growing fast inside it. Revenue from its cloud infrastructure services rose 39% in the second quarter, and management said all of its GPU capacity is sold out. GoDaddy expects 6% revenue growth for 2026 at the midpoint, and management said bookings from traditional products in its Applications & Commerce segment are moderating.
On today’s figures, GoDaddy is the cheaper, more profitable and less indebted of the two stocks. Akamai offers the prospect of faster growth: management expects overall revenue growth to accelerate into the low teens in 2027, a pace it has not yet reported. Management expects Akamai’s cloud infrastructure services revenue to accelerate meaningfully in the fourth quarter. Growth in that revenue is the measure to watch, starting with Akamai’s third-quarter report, expected on or around November 5, 2026.
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