Cloudflare vs. Amazon CloudFront: Which CDN is right for you?

What is a CDN?

A CDN is a collection of geographically dispersed servers whose job is to speed up the delivery of website data.

Without a CDN, servers host an application in one central location. Users who are distant from that location could experience high network latency rates as data moves over network infrastructure. This undercuts performance, leading to issues like slow loading time for webpages and an increase in connection errors.

Because a CDN includes servers spread across a wide geographic area, it is typically able to serve content to users in various local areas quickly with fewer dropped connections. CDNs can further boost performance by caching data and balancing application requests across multiple servers.

CDNs are usually invisible from the perspective of users as they connect to the website or application they want to access. The CDN works in the background by accepting the user's request and routing it to whichever server within the CDN that can best handle the request. This is based on factors such as geographic proximity to the user and current server load.

Key capabilities of CDNs

While the precise functionality of CDNs can vary, virtually all CDNs deliver the following core features and capabilities:

• Localized content delivery. CDNs distribute content to users in disparate geographic regions. This helps avoid the risk of high network latency when serving content.
• Load balancing. Use CDNs in conjunction with load balancers to distribute requests across servers within the CDN to boost performance. If one server is overloaded with requests, a load balancer can direct new requests to a different server within the CDN.
• Data caching. Most CDNs can cache data. When users request cached data, a local CDN server can serve it quickly without waiting for the website to generate the data from scratch.
• Security. CDNs typically identify and block DDoS attacks, which occur when malicious parties attempt to flood a website or application with bogus requests. While users can mitigate DDoS attacks without a CDN, CDNs offer more comprehensive DDoS protection because they can spread malicious requests across a broader network, reducing the effect of the DDoS attack until it is fully contained.

When combined, these features result in shorter website or application loading times, fewer outages and better UX. In addition, CDNs can help reduce overall bandwidth and network infrastructure costs by minimizing the amount of data transfers that take place on a network.

What is Cloudflare?

Cloudflare is a major U.S.-based CDN provider that relies on a global network of data centers in 335 cities to optimize content delivery across the globe. The company also provides other network performance enhancement and security services, such as data center interconnection and secure access service edge.

Cloudflare, which was founded in 2010, specializes solely in networking and network security services. Its CDN services work with websites and applications hosted virtually anywhere. Users don't need to rely on a certain cloud provider or deployment model to use Cloudflare CDN.

What is Amazon CloudFront?

Amazon CloudFront is a CDN service in the AWS cloud designed to speed website content delivery. According to Amazon, the CloudFront network includes over 600 points of presence, or locations, that can serve data. These PoPs aren't necessarily full-scale data centers, but they are geographically distributed servers that can host data for CDN purposes.

Although CloudFront is built into AWS and is designed primarily for use in conjunction with applications hosted on AWS, it's possible to use CloudFront as a CDN for applications hosted outside of AWS.

Comparing Cloudflare vs. Amazon CloudFront

Cloudflare and CloudFront are both large-scale CDNs that offer comprehensive content delivery and security features, including latency minimization, data caching and DDoS mitigation.

However, Cloudflare and CloudFront differ in how they work and in the following areas.

1. Network infrastructure and coverage

Cloudflare and CloudFront have roughly equal numbers of CDN locations, but Cloudflare reports broader geographic coverage. As of early 2025, Cloudflare stated that it has locations in 335 cities in 125-plus countries, compared to 100-plus cities in 50-plus countries for CloudFront. This might make Cloudflare a better option for organizations that need to serve a user base that is geographically disparate.

2. Performance

CDN performance varies based on factors such as configuration, request patterns and the geographic origins of its requests. However, independent benchmarking suggests that Cloudflare is slightly faster on average than CloudFront.

Speeds can vary widely across geographies, connection patterns and routing systems. Users should research which CDN provider is likely to provide the fastest service based on the network design and geographic locations their business needs to support.

3. Security

Cloudflare and CloudFront both offer DDoS protection and are effective at mitigating DDoS attacks. However, Cloudflare arguably has some strengths in DDoS mitigation that CloudFront lacks. Cloudflare offers advanced DDoS protection by default with all plans, and its anti-DDoS services are designed to work across clouds. In contrast, CloudFront offers only basic DDoS protection available by default, and its DDoS protections work best with AWS-based workloads.

4. Pricing

Comparing Cloudflare and CloudFront pricing is difficult because each employs different pricing terms. CloudFront is notable because its pricing is simpler and more predictable, focusing mainly on how much data the CDN serves. Cloudflare has a more complex set of pricing plans, with costs varying based on features, as well as usage volume.

Cloudflare stands out for having a more comprehensive free tier, which includes a broad set of features and no data transfer limits. CloudFront is free for the first terabyte of data users transfer per month, with standard charges applying thereafter.

5. Ease of use

While ease of use is subjective, Cloudflare is easier to set up and manage for users who don't already have specific experience with AWS or any other cloud platform.

By comparison, those who already know AWS might find CloudFront to be a simpler CDN option to configure and administer because it integrates natively with the other AWS services they might be using.

Cloudflare vs. Amazon CloudFront use cases

Cloudflare and CloudFront are both capable of supporting virtually any use case requiring a modern CDN. However, each service is arguably better suited toward certain use cases than others.

The ideal use cases for Cloudflare include the following:

• Multi-cloud CDN. Cloudflare stands out here because it's a cloud-agnostic CDN. CloudFront can also support multi-cloud CDN scenarios, but it's designed primarily for AWS-based workloads.
• Smaller-scale hosting. Because Cloudflare provides a broad set of features through a single service, including its basic features available for no cost, it tends to be a better option for businesses with relatively small-scale website or application hosting needs.
• Network and security optimization. Cloudflare offers a broad package of network management and security capabilities. This can be attractive as an all-in-one network optimization service.

CloudFront is better suited for the following use cases:

• AWS-based CDN. For workloads running in AWS as part of an AWS-centric business, CloudFront is a natural CDN choice because it's a native AWS service.
• CDN as the priority. CloudFront can be more attractive than Cloudflare in scenarios where the only service needed is a CDN.

Editor's note: This article has been updated to reflect industry changes and to expand on the definition of CDNs.

Chris Tozzi is a freelance writer, research adviser, and professor of IT and society. He has previously worked as a journalist and Linux systems administrator.