Easily compare CloudFront and Cloudflare 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 | Cloudflare |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | Cloudflare provides a global CDN with unique performance capabilities and a strong focus on security. The company has a global infrastructure built from the ground up using only next-generation, high-performance equipment—no legacy software or hardware. The result is a CDN that's easy to set up, affordable, and built to continuously adapt and integrate emerging technologies to meet future needs of everyone's Internet properties. |
Products
| Product | CloudFront | Cloudflare |
|---|---|---|
| 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? | Streaming Media | Stream Live |
| Video on demandDelivery of on demand video | Stream | |
| Image OptimizationAutomatic image transformation/compression/optimization | Image Resizing, Mirage, Polish | |
| DNSAuthoritative DNS for customer domain | AWS Route53 | DNS |
| WAFWeb Application Firewall | AWS WAF | Cloud Web Application Firewall |
| Anti-DDoSDDoS attack protection. Specific product(s) for this. | AWS Shield | DDoS Protection |
| Private CDNDedicated edge resources & custom configs | ||
| Edge ComputeRun your code on CDN edge servers | Lambda@Edge | Workers |
Network
How many POP locations do CloudFront and Cloudflare have in different parts of the world?
| Region | CloudFront | Cloudflare |
|---|---|---|
| North America | 19 | 46 |
| Latin America | 6 | 44 |
| Europe | 31 | 43 |
| Russia & CIS | 0 | 11 |
| Asia excl. China | 18 | 45 |
| China | 4 | 37 |
| Oceania | 5 | 10 |
| Middle-East | 4 | 15 |
| Africa | 3 | 22 |
Pricing
| Pricing & contract duration | CloudFront | Cloudflare |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum contract term | None | None |
| Minimum monthly costs | None | $0 |
| 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) | None |
| NA/EU traffic (low volume) | $0.085 per GB | $0 |
| APAC traffic (low volume) | $0.12 per GB (India: $0.109) | $0 |
| LATAM traffic (low volume) | $0.11 per GB | $0 |
Features
| Web acceleration | CloudFront | Cloudflare |
|---|---|---|
| Instant setupSign up, configure, start testing. | ||
| Change propagation delayHow fast do config changes propagate to all POPs? | ~10 minutes | Instant |
Apex/root domain OK  No performance degradation when using http(s)://domain.com |
Only if used together with AWS Route53 | Global Anycast network |
| HTTP/2 | HTTP/2 announcement (Sep 2016) | |
| WebSockets | Using WebSockets with CloudFront distributions | WebSockets docs |
| 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, 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? | Can't configure specific other Host header | Can be an IP address |
| Origin ShieldOne POP pulls from origin, other POPs pull from the shield POP | Origin Shield docs | Tiered Cache, included in all paid plans |
| Waiting RoomDuring peak traffic, route users to a virtual waiting room | Virtual Waiting Room on AWS | Cloudflare Waiting Room |
| Push / uploadStore your content directly on CDN, no customer origin | ||
| Cache control - CDN caching | Page rules for overriding caching headers | |
| Cache control - client caching | ||
| Serve Stale CDN serves cached but expired content in case origin is in trouble |
No Cache-Control extensions support | Only 'stale while revalidate' |
| Purge Invalidate or delete cached objects on CDN |
Purge Speed | ~ 5 seconds |
| Purge - capabilities | Purge all and by directory/file type (wildcards) | Purge per file and purge all |
| Analytics | Amazon CloudFront Reports & Analytics | Web analytics, threats and more. Live-updating for paying customers |
| Log files |
Only delivered to S3
CloudFront delivers access logs for a distribution up to several times an hour
|
Only for Enterprise customers, instantly available |
| API | Purge, analytics, configuration | Purge, analytics, configuration |
| HTTPS & Content Protection | CloudFront | Cloudflare |
|---|---|---|
| CDN domain HTTPSUse the CDN's domain, like cloudfront.net | Free (not SNI) | SNI |
| Customer domain HTTPSYour domain in the CDN's certificate | More info | |
| Customer cert HTTPSYour certificate on the CDN | Free (SNI) or $600/m for non-SNI | |
| Token authentication | Serving Private Content through CloudFront | More info |
| Geo blocking | Restricting the Geographic Distribution of Your Content | Access Rules |
| Hotlink protectionThird parties cannot deeplink to your content | Use AWS WAF for Referer Checking | |
| Basic authenticationUser logs in on the CDN to get content | Possible with Workers | |
| IP white/blacklisting | Use AWS WAF to Block IP Addresses | Access Rules |
Support
| Customer support | CloudFront | Cloudflare |
|---|---|---|
| Documentation | Yes, public. API docs | Yes, public. Cloudflare Community. |
| Humans | Community support is free. Email and phone support (AWS Support) available at extra costs | Email support for all. Phone only for Enterprise customers |