Skip to content

CloudFront versus ChinaCache

Easily compare CloudFront and ChinaCache for POP locations, products, pricing, features & support. We hope this helps you better understand the similarities and differences between these content delivery networks.

CloudFront logo ChinaCache logo

Company

Company CloudFront ChinaCache
Short profile CloudFront is the CDN of AWS (Amazon Web Services), the world's largest cloud services provider. CloudFront offers a mature set of content delivery products and has a big network of POPs on many continents. Solid documentation and APIs make CloudFront a developer-friendly CDN. Founded in 1998, publicly traded on NASDAQ (CCIH), ChinaCache is the first CDN in China and generally considered to be one of the better CDNs for China delivery because of their network, knowledge and experience from working with (enterprise) multinational customers. The ChinaCache network and services are not limited to mainland China and ChinaCache has been growing steadily outside China in the past years.

Products

Yes
Sort of/partially
No
Extra costs
Unknown
Product CloudFront ChinaCache
Dynamic content deliveryNon-cacheable content delivery. User login, shopping cart ... Dynamic Content Delivery Dynamic Content Acceleration
Small file deliveryStatic object delivery; caching of small files (file size <1 MB) Static Content Acceleration
Large file deliveryStatic object delivery; caching of large files (file size >1 MB) Download Acceleration
Live videoDelivery of live video. RTMP? Transcoding/transmuxing? Streaming Media Media Acceleration
Video on demandDelivery of on demand video Media Acceleration
Image OptimizationAutomatic image transformation/compression/optimization
DNSAuthoritative DNS for customer domain AWS Route53
WAFWeb Application Firewall AWS WAF
Anti-DDoSDDoS attack protection. Specific product(s) for this. AWS Shield
Private CDNDedicated edge resources & custom configs
Edge ComputeRun your code on CDN edge servers Lambda@Edge

Network

How many POP locations do CloudFront and ChinaCache have in different parts of the world?

Region CloudFront ChinaCache
North America 19 8
Latin America 7 1
Europe 31 3
Russia & CIS 0 0
Asia excl. China 18 10
China 4 400
Oceania 5 0
Middle East 5 1
Africa 4 1

Pricing

Pricing & contract duration CloudFront ChinaCache
Minimum contract term None 12 months
Minimum monthly costs None Unknown
Requests costsCustomers pay for client to CDN requests $0.0075 - $0.022 per 10k requests None
Ingress costsCustomers pay for origin-to-CDN bytes transferred $0.02 - $0.16 per GB (free if origin is AWS) Unknown
NA/EU traffic (low volume) $0.085 per GB Unknown
APAC traffic (low volume) $0.12 per GB (India: $0.109) Unknown
LATAM traffic (low volume) $0.11 per GB Unknown

Features

Yes
Sort of/partially
No
Extra costs
Unknown
Web acceleration CloudFront ChinaCache
Instant setupSign up, configure, start testing.
Change propagation delayHow fast do config changes propagate to all POPs? ~10 minutes <5 minutes
Apex/root domain OK Blog: Root domain on CDN and performanceNo performance degradation when using http(s)://domain.com Only if used together with AWS Route53 Non-Anycasted network
HTTP/2 HTTP/2 announcement (Sep 2016)
HTTP/3 HTTP/3 announcement
WebSockets Using WebSockets with CloudFront distributions
IPv6Do the edge servers have IPv6? IPv6 support announcement (Oct 2016) At customer request
Compression CDN Guide: CompressionReduce file size for faster delivery Resend from origin, or compress on edge
tooltip CloudFront can compress many content types on the edge and supports Brotli
Origin pull - protocolHTTP only or HTTPS possible too? HTTP and HTTPS HTTP and HTTPS
Origin pull - Host headerUse client > edge value? Set specific value? Can't configure specific other Host header Configure specific other Host header
tooltip CDN can also forward client request Host header to origin
Origin ShieldOne POP pulls from origin, other POPs pull from the shield POP Origin Shield docs
Waiting RoomDuring peak traffic, route users to a virtual waiting room Virtual Waiting Room on AWS
Push / uploadStore your content directly on CDN, no customer origin
Cache control - CDN caching CDN can honor origin headers
tooltip Custom rules can be set by CDN support team
Cache control - client caching
Serve Stale CDN Guide: Serve StaleCDN serves cached but expired content in case origin is in trouble Supports Cache-Control extensions
Purge CDN Guide: PurgeInvalidate or delete cached objects on CDN Purge Speed <3 minutes delay
Purge - capabilities Purge all and by directory/file type (wildcards) Purge all, purge by directory
Analytics Amazon CloudFront Reports & Analytics
Log files Only delivered to S3
tooltip CloudFront delivers access logs for a distribution up to several times an hour
Logs are daily or hourly
API Purge, analytics, configuration Purge, analytics, billing. Not configuration
HTTPS & Content Protection CloudFront ChinaCache
CDN domain HTTPSUse the CDN's domain, like cloudfront.net Free (not SNI) Only for testing
Customer domain HTTPSYour domain in the CDN's certificate
Customer cert HTTPSYour certificate on the CDN Free (SNI) or $600/m for non-SNI
Token authentication Serving Private Content through CloudFront
Geo blocking Restricting the Geographic Distribution of Your Content
Hotlink protectionThird parties cannot deeplink to your content Use AWS WAF for Referer Checking
Basic authenticationUser logs in on the CDN to get content
IP white/blacklisting Use AWS WAF to Block IP Addresses

Support

Customer support CloudFront ChinaCache
Documentation Yes, public. API docs Yes, but not public.
Humans Community support is free. Email and phone support (AWS Support) available at extra costs Different levels of support are available.