Which other companies besides Cloudflare have publicly acknowledged operating parts of Apple Private Relay?
Executive summary
Apple’s iCloud Private Relay is built as a two‑hop system that combines Apple‑operated ingress relays with third‑party egress relays; Cloudflare has publicly acknowledged operating portions of that infrastructure [1] [2]. Fastly has also publicly described working with Apple to support parts of the system [3], while Akamai’s participation is documented by researchers and reporting but lacks a clear, direct public admission from Akamai in the sources provided [4] [5].
1. Cloudflare: the named partner that went public
Cloudflare has explicitly stated its role in operating portions of iCloud Private Relay and published explanatory material aimed at web operators and users, framing itself as a partner that runs egress infrastructure and helped with standards like Oblivious DoH used by the system [1] [2] [6]. That public posture from Cloudflare is corroborated across Cloudflare’s own blog posts and community explanations, which were referenced by multiple outlets and user discussions soon after Apple unveiled Private Relay [1] [6].
2. Fastly: an explicit acknowledgement from a CDN operator
Fastly’s corporate blog has publicly discussed its work supporting privacy proxy infrastructure and described how its global edge network underpins Relay‑style services; Fastly framed that work as supporting “key infrastructure pillars” for Apple’s Private Relay and similar mobile privacy services, which counts as an explicit public acknowledgement in the record provided [3]. Fastly’s messaging also ties its Relay work to broader product efforts (INVISV Relay) and positions the company as a privacy‑oriented infrastructure provider—an implicit commercial angle that benefits Fastly by showcasing new revenue streams tied to Apple’s rollout [3].
3. Akamai: strong technical evidence and reporting, limited direct public confirmation in sources
Multiple observational reports, contemporaneous media pieces and an academic traffic‑analysis study identify Akamai as one of the operational egress/ingress actors for Private Relay—reporting that includes IP‑based attribution and Autonomous System (AS) analysis placing Private Relay IPs in Akamai’s address space [4] [5]. However, among the provided sources there is no clear Akamai press release or blog post that reads as an explicit, standalone public acknowledgement of operating Private Relay nodes; the evidence for Akamai’s role in these sources is empirical and journalistic rather than a first‑party confirmation from Akamai itself [4] [5].
4. How public admissions and technical inference diverge—and why it matters
The distinction between a company saying “we operate this” and independent technical attribution is important: Cloudflare and Fastly have public-facing statements about their involvement that shape public understanding and allow them to frame privacy, performance, and product narratives [1] [3], whereas Akamai’s role in the sources is primarily demonstrated by researchers and reporters analyzing IP ranges and AS ownership [4] [5]. That divergence creates room for different narratives—vendors can claim privacy wins and new services, researchers can flag centralization or possible single‑party overlaps—and it means that “publicly acknowledged” should be read narrowly when assessing who stepped forward versus who was identified by measurement [1] [3] [5].
5. Alternative views, incentives and unanswered questions
Apple deliberately avoided naming all third‑party partners in its initial descriptions, which fosters reliance on operator disclosures and independent measurement to fill gaps [5]; Cloudflare and Fastly had incentives to publicize participation because it legitimizes their technology and product positioning, while Akamai may have preferred quieter participation or simply has not issued a matching public statement in the sources provided [1] [3] [4]. Independent academic work has also raised operational concerns—reporting instances where ingress and egress relays briefly appeared under the same operator—underscoring why precise, transparent disclosures from Apple and each CDN matter to privacy and policy debates [5].
6. Bottom line
Based on the documents here, Cloudflare and Fastly have publicly acknowledged operating parts of Apple Private Relay [1] [3], while Akamai is repeatedly identified by researchers and reporters as an operational participant but without a clear, direct public acknowledgement from Akamai contained in the provided sources [4] [5].