Easily compare CacheFly and CloudFront for POP locations, products, pricing, features & support. We hope this helps you better understand the similarities and differences between these content delivery networks.
Company
Company | CacheFly | CloudFront |
---|---|---|
Short profile | Launched in 2002, CacheFly developed the world's first TCP-anycast based content delivery network. CacheFly has a focus on optimizing the CDN for throughput and has steadily built out the network to now have 50+ POPs on 6 continents. CacheFly provides a 100% uptime SLA and takes pride in acting as 'consultants to our customers'. | 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. |
Products
Product | CacheFly | CloudFront |
---|---|---|
Dynamic content deliveryNon-cacheable content delivery. User login, shopping cart ... | Dynamic Content Delivery | |
Small file deliveryStatic object delivery; caching of small files (file size <1 MB) | ||
Large file deliveryStatic object delivery; caching of large files (file size >1 MB) | ||
Live videoDelivery of live video. RTMP? Transcoding/transmuxing? | Ultra Low Latency Video Streaming | Streaming Media |
Video on demandDelivery of on demand video | VoD | |
Image OptimizationAutomatic image transformation/compression/optimization | Smart Image 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 | Fully custom solution | |
Edge ComputeRun your code on CDN edge servers | Custom solutions available for edge scripting | Lambda@Edge |
Network
How many POP locations do CacheFly and CloudFront have in different parts of the world?
Region | CacheFly | CloudFront |
---|---|---|
North America | 17 | 19 |
Latin America | 17 | 6 |
Europe | 16 | 31 |
Russia & CIS | 0 | 0 |
Asia excl. China | 7 | 18 |
China | 2 | 4 |
Oceania | 3 | 5 |
Middle-East | 5 | 4 |
Africa | 1 | 3 |
Pricing
Pricing & contract duration | CacheFly | CloudFront |
---|---|---|
Minimum contract term | 1 month | None |
Minimum monthly costs | $595 (35 TB/m) | None |
Requests costsCustomers pay for client to CDN requests | No | $0.0075 - $0.022 per 10k requests |
Ingress costsCustomers pay for origin-to-CDN bytes transferred | Yes | $0.02 - $0.16 per GB (free if origin is AWS) |
NA/EU traffic (low volume) | n/a | $0.085 per GB |
APAC traffic (low volume) | n/a | $0.12 per GB (India: $0.109) |
LATAM traffic (low volume) | n/a | $0.11 per GB |
Features
Web acceleration | CacheFly | CloudFront |
---|---|---|
Instant setupSign up, configure, start testing. | ||
Change propagation delayHow fast do config changes propagate to all POPs? | 5 - 180s depending on the change | ~10 minutes |
Apex/root domain OK |
Must purchase dedicated IP
|
Only if used together with AWS Route53 |
HTTP/2 | HTTP/2 announcement (Sep 2016) | |
WebSockets | Using WebSockets with CloudFront distributions | |
IPv6Do the edge servers have IPv6? | IPv6 support announcement (Oct 2016) | |
Compression |
Resend from origin, or compress on edge |
Resend from origin, or compress on edge
|
Origin pull - protocolHTTP only or HTTPS possible too? |
HTTP and HTTPS
|
HTTP and HTTPS |
Origin pull - Host headerUse client > edge value? Set specific value? | Set specific Host header value or forward value from client to edge request | Can't configure specific other Host header |
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 | FTP. Some storage free, more storage available at additional costs | |
Cache control - CDN caching | Origin headers are honored. Can config overrides | |
Cache control - client caching | Origin headers are forwarded to client. Can config overrides | |
Serve Stale |
CacheFly support team can activate this edge behaviour | No Cache-Control extensions support |
Purge |
Purge Speed | Purge Speed |
Purge - capabilities | Purge all and by directory, not by tag or header | Purge all and by directory/file type (wildcards) |
Analytics | Near real-time, lots of metrics | Amazon CloudFront Reports & Analytics |
Log files |
Pull via FTP or have pushed to customer endpoint
|
Only delivered to S3
|
API | Purge, analytics, configuration | Purge, analytics, configuration |
HTTPS & Content Protection | CacheFly | CloudFront |
---|---|---|
CDN domain HTTPSUse the CDN's domain, like cloudfront.net | Free | Free (not SNI) |
Customer domain HTTPSYour domain in the CDN's certificate | Custom pricing | |
Customer cert HTTPSYour certificate on the CDN | EV cert and/or Non-SNI possible | Free (SNI) or $600/m for non-SNI |
Token authentication | Self-service activation/configuration | Serving Private Content through CloudFront |
Geo blocking | Self-service activation/configuration. Predefined and custom rules | 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 | Available in a Custom/Private CDN scenario | |
IP white/blacklisting | Custom rules can be scripted (by support team at no extra charge) | Use AWS WAF to Block IP Addresses |
Support
Customer support | CacheFly | CloudFront |
---|---|---|
Documentation | Yes, public | Yes, public. API docs |
Humans | All customers get 24/7 email and phone support and a dedicated implementation/solutions engineer. Extra support ('Elite managed') available at a fee with SLA for support response time | Community support is free. Email and phone support (AWS Support) available at extra costs |