Easily compare CloudFront and AdvancedHosting 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 | CloudFront | AdvancedHosting |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | AdvancedHosting provides dedicated servers, cloud servers, cloud storage, CDN, AnycastDNS, DevOps as a Service and domain registration since 2002. The CDN has ~25 POPs on 4 continents, supporting delivery of video and static assets. |
Products
| Product | CloudFront | AdvancedHosting |
|---|---|---|
| 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) | CDN for Static Content | |
| Large file deliveryStatic object delivery; caching of large files (file size >1 MB) | ||
| Live videoDelivery of live video. RTMP? Transcoding/transmuxing? | Streaming Media | CDN for Video |
| Video on demandDelivery of on demand video | CDN for Video | |
| Image OptimizationAutomatic image transformation/compression/optimization | ||
| DNSAuthoritative DNS for customer domain | AWS Route53 | Anycast DNS |
| 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 AdvancedHosting have in different parts of the world?
| Region | CloudFront | AdvancedHosting |
|---|---|---|
| North America | 19 | 9 |
| Latin America | 7 | 2 |
| Europe | 31 | 9 |
| Russia & CIS | 0 | 1 |
| Asia excl. China | 18 | 3 |
| China | 4 | 0 |
| Oceania | 5 | 0 |
| Middle East | 4 | 0 |
| Africa | 4 | 0 |
Pricing
| Pricing & contract duration | CloudFront | AdvancedHosting |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum contract term | None | None |
| Minimum monthly costs | None | $0.01 |
| 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) | Yes |
| NA/EU traffic (low volume) | $0.085 per GB | $0.025 per GB or $0.5 per Mbps |
| APAC traffic (low volume) | $0.12 per GB (India: $0.109) | $0.025 per GB or $0.5 per Mbps |
| LATAM traffic (low volume) | $0.11 per GB | $0.025 per GB or $0.5 per Mbps |
Features
| Web acceleration | CloudFront | AdvancedHosting |
|---|---|---|
| Instant setupSign up, configure, start testing. | ||
| Change propagation delayHow fast do config changes propagate to all POPs? | ~10 minutes | 2 to 3 minutes (video takes longer) |
Apex/root domain OK  No performance degradation when using http(s)://domain.com |
Only if used together with AWS Route53 | |
| 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) | |
| Compression Reduce file size for faster delivery |
Resend from origin, or compress on edge
CloudFront can compress many content types on the edge and supports Brotli
|
Resend from origin only
Does not compress on the edge
|
| Origin pull - protocolHTTP only or HTTPS possible too? | HTTP and HTTPS |
HTTP and HTTPS
Video: only pull over HTTP
|
| Origin pull - Host headerUse client > edge value? Set specific value? | Can't configure specific other Host header |
Can be different from origin host
Video: only origin Host
|
| Origin ShieldOne POP pulls from origin, other POPs pull from the shield POP | Origin Shield docs | Free. |
| 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 | $25/TB | |
| Cache control - CDN caching | Origin or CDN controlled | |
| Cache control - client caching | Origin or CDN controlled | |
| Serve Stale CDN serves cached but expired content in case origin is in trouble |
Supports Cache-Control extensions | |
| Purge Invalidate or delete cached objects on CDN |
Purge Speed | A few minutes |
| Purge - capabilities | Purge all and by directory/file type (wildcards) | Purge specific files, purge all (not for VideoCDN) |
| Analytics | Amazon CloudFront Reports & Analytics | Cache hit ratio and error rate not yet available |
| Log files |
Only delivered to S3
CloudFront delivers access logs for a distribution up to several times an hour
|
Available on request (support ticket) |
| API | Purge, analytics, configuration | Purge, analytics, configuration |
| HTTPS & Content Protection | CloudFront | AdvancedHosting |
|---|---|---|
| CDN domain HTTPSUse the CDN's domain, like cloudfront.net | Free (not SNI) | |
| Customer domain HTTPSYour domain in the CDN's certificate | Let's Encrypt with auto-renewal. CDN handles all. | |
| Customer cert HTTPSYour certificate on the CDN | Free (SNI) or $600/m for non-SNI | Can be an EV certificate. Free. |
| Token authentication | Serving Private Content through CloudFront | Antihotlink protection |
| Geo blocking | Restricting the Geographic Distribution of Your Content | VideoCDN only |
| Hotlink protectionThird parties cannot deeplink to your content | Use AWS WAF for Referer Checking | Set allow and/or block list. |
| Basic authenticationUser logs in on the CDN to get content | ||
| IP white/blacklisting | Use AWS WAF to Block IP Addresses | VideoCDN only |
Support
| Customer support | CloudFront | AdvancedHosting |
|---|---|---|
| Documentation | Yes, public. API docs | API docs and VoD API docs |
| Humans | Community support is free. Email and phone support (AWS Support) available at extra costs | Ticket system, Skype and email support is free. |