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Gcore versus CloudFront

Easily compare Gcore 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.

Gcore logo CloudFront logo

Company

Company Gcore CloudFront
Short profile Gcore is a global CDN with a focus on gaming: "We expand the geographical presence of your game and speed up downloads for your players". Gcore is headquartered in Luxembourg and employs 400+ people. 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

Yes
Sort of/partially
No
Extra costs
Unknown
Product Gcore 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? Live Streaming Streaming Media
Video on demandDelivery of on demand video VoD
Image OptimizationAutomatic image transformation/compression/optimization Image Stack
DNSAuthoritative DNS for customer domain DNS AWS Route53
WAFWeb Application Firewall WAF AWS WAF
Anti-DDoSDDoS attack protection. Specific product(s) for this. DDoS Protection AWS Shield
Private CDNDedicated edge resources & custom configs
Edge ComputeRun your code on CDN edge servers Lambda@Edge

Network

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

Region Gcore CloudFront
North America 15 19
Latin America 17 7
Europe 23 31
Russia & CIS 13 0
Asia excl. China 15 18
China 0 4
Oceania 2 5
Middle East 13 5
Africa 12 4

Pricing

Pricing & contract duration Gcore CloudFront
Minimum contract term One month None
Minimum monthly costs $37 None
Requests costsCustomers pay for client to CDN requests First 1 billion free, more cost $0.0079/10,000 $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) $0.024 per GB $0.085 per GB
APAC traffic (low volume) $0.024 per GB $0.12 per GB (India: $0.109)
LATAM traffic (low volume) $0.024 per GB $0.11 per GB

Features

Yes
Sort of/partially
No
Extra costs
Unknown
Web acceleration Gcore CloudFront
Instant setupSign up, configure, start testing.
Change propagation delayHow fast do config changes propagate to all POPs? ~15 minutes ~10 minutes
Apex/root domain OK Blog: Root domain on CDN and performanceNo performance degradation when using http(s)://domain.com Custom solution (host your DNS zone ...) Only if used together with AWS Route53
HTTP/2 HTTP/2 announcement (Sep 2016)
HTTP/3 HTTP/3 announcement
WebSockets WebSockets docs Using WebSockets with CloudFront distributions
IPv6Do the edge servers have IPv6? IPv6 support announcement (Oct 2016)
Compression CDN Guide: CompressionReduce file size for faster delivery Resend from origin, or compress on edge 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 be different from origin host Can't configure specific other Host header
Origin ShieldOne POP pulls from origin, other POPs pull from the shield POP Enable and configure Origin shielding 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 Origin or CDN controlled
Cache control - client caching Origin or CDN controlled
Serve Stale CDN Guide: Serve StaleCDN serves cached but expired content in case origin is in trouble Always Online Supports Cache-Control extensions
Purge CDN Guide: PurgeInvalidate or delete cached objects on CDN Purge Speed Purge Speed
Purge - capabilities Purge all, directory, and by file type/pattern Purge all and by directory/file type (wildcards)
Analytics Many metrics, real-time updates Amazon CloudFront Reports & Analytics
Log files Export logs to your storage. Logs are exported at the end of each hour. Only delivered to S3
tooltip CloudFront delivers access logs for a distribution up to several times an hour
API Purge, analytics, configuration Purge, analytics, configuration
HTTPS & Content Protection Gcore CloudFront
CDN domain HTTPSUse the CDN's domain, like cloudfront.net Free (not SNI)
Customer domain HTTPSYour domain in the CDN's certificate
Customer cert HTTPSYour certificate on the CDN Manage self in control panel Free (SNI) or $600/m for non-SNI
Token authentication Secure Token Serving Private Content through CloudFront
Geo blocking Country Access Policy Restricting the Geographic Distribution of Your Content
Hotlink protectionThird parties cannot deeplink to your content Referer Access Policy Use AWS WAF for Referer Checking
Basic authenticationUser logs in on the CDN to get content
IP white/blacklisting IP Access Policy Use AWS WAF to Block IP Addresses

Support

Customer support Gcore CloudFront
Documentation Yes, public Yes, public. API docs
Humans Technical support depends on price plan. Pro plan and up get 24/7 mail, chat and phone support. Community support is free. Email and phone support (AWS Support) available at extra costs