Easily compare Lumen 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 | Lumen | CloudFront |
---|---|---|
Short profile | Lumen (formerly known as Centurylink or Level 3) owns and operates a global Tier-1 network and - logically - their CDN runs on top of it. Lumen CDN has POPs on many continents and their product focus is on video, large object delivery and edge computing. | 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 | Lumen | CloudFront |
---|---|---|
Dynamic content deliveryNon-cacheable content delivery. User login, shopping cart ... | CDN Edge Compute | Dynamic Content Delivery |
Small file deliveryStatic object delivery; caching of small files (file size <1 MB) | CDN and/or CDN Edge Compute | |
Large file deliveryStatic object delivery; caching of large files (file size >1 MB) | ||
Live videoDelivery of live video. RTMP? Transcoding/transmuxing? | CDN and/or CDN Mesh Delivery | Streaming Media |
Video on demandDelivery of on demand video | CDN and/or CDN Mesh Delivery | |
Image OptimizationAutomatic image transformation/compression/optimization | part of CDN Edge Compute | |
DNSAuthoritative DNS for customer domain | AWS Route53 | |
WAFWeb Application Firewall | WAF | AWS WAF |
Anti-DDoSDDoS attack protection. Specific product(s) for this. | Lumen DDoS Hyper (on-demand) and DDoS Mitigation Service | AWS Shield |
Private CDNDedicated edge resources & custom configs | CDN Mesh Delivery for Enterprise | |
Edge ComputeRun your code on CDN edge servers | Edge Compute | Lambda@Edge |
Network
How many POP locations do Lumen and CloudFront have in different parts of the world?
Region | Lumen | CloudFront |
---|---|---|
North America | 28 | 19 |
Latin America | 11 | 7 |
Europe | 35 | 31 |
Russia & CIS | 0 | 0 |
Asia excl. China | 7 | 18 |
China | 0 | 4 |
Oceania | 5 | 5 |
Middle East | 4 | 4 |
Africa | 3 | 4 |
Pricing
Pricing & contract duration | Lumen | CloudFront |
---|---|---|
Minimum contract term | Unknown | None |
Minimum monthly costs | Unknown | None |
Requests costsCustomers pay for client to CDN requests | Unknown | $0.0075 - $0.022 per 10k requests |
Ingress costsCustomers pay for origin-to-CDN bytes transferred | Unknown | $0.02 - $0.16 per GB (free if origin is AWS) |
NA/EU traffic (low volume) | Unknown | $0.085 per GB |
APAC traffic (low volume) | Unknown | $0.12 per GB (India: $0.109) |
LATAM traffic (low volume) | Unknown | $0.11 per GB |
Features
Web acceleration | Lumen | CloudFront |
---|---|---|
Instant setupSign up, configure, start testing. | Not yet, but coming soon. | |
Change propagation delayHow fast do config changes propagate to all POPs? | No longer than 15 minutes - Often instant | ~10 minutes |
Apex/root domain OK |
Available with Section product for an additional fee | 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 |
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? |
Configure specific other Host header
|
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, SFTP, rsync. Storage costs apply | |
Cache control - CDN caching | ||
Cache control - client caching | ||
Serve Stale |
Supports Cache-Control extensions | |
Purge |
Instant | Purge Speed |
Purge - capabilities | Purge all but not purge by directory or tag or header | Purge all and by directory/file type (wildcards) |
Analytics | Amazon CloudFront Reports & Analytics | |
Log files |
Only delivered to S3
|
|
API | Purge, analytics, configuration | Purge, analytics, configuration |
HTTPS & Content Protection | Lumen | 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 | 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 | Lumen | CloudFront |
---|---|---|
Documentation | Yes, but not public | Yes, public. API docs |
Humans | Community support is free. Email and phone support (AWS Support) available at extra costs |