Amazon CloudFront vs Cloudflare Comparison
Compare Amazon CloudFront vs Cloudflare features, pricing, and more.
Last updated: November 2026
Amazon CloudFront
7.9/10
Amazon CloudFront is the AWS content delivery network. It caches and serves websites, APIs and media from more than 750 edge locations, and includes DDoS protection, WAF and edge compute.
Cloudflare
7.6/10
Cloudflare is a global edge network. It offers CDN, DNS, DDoS protection and a WAF, plus serverless compute and storage (Workers, R2, D1) for developers and businesses.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | A Amazon CloudFront | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 7.9/10 | 7.6/10 |
| Analytics | 7/10 | 7/10 |
| Cost | 6/10 | 9/10 |
| Customization | 9/10 | 8/10 |
| Ease of Use | 5/10 | 7/10 |
| Integration | 9/10 | 8/10 |
| Reliability | 9/10 | 7/10 |
| Scalability | 10/10 | 9/10 |
| Security | 9/10 | 9/10 |
| Support | 6/10 | 4/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Cheapest paid plan | $15/mo Pro (flat-rate) | $5/mo Workers Paid |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | Free Free (flat-rate) | Free Free |
| Features | ||
| Content Delivery Network | ||
| DDoS Protection | ||
| Free SSL Certificates | ||
| Serverless Functions | ||
| Uptime SLA | ||
| API and CLI | Not listed | |
| Dedicated Servers | ||
| Managed Databases | Not listed | |
| Managed WordPress | Not listed | |
| Multiple Regions | Not listed | |
| Object Storage | Not listed | |
| Shared Hosting | ||
Amazon CloudFront vs Cloudflare cost by team size
Amazon CloudFront and Cloudflare cost the same at every team size we checked.
| Team size | Amazon CloudFront | Cloudflare |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | FreeFree (flat-rate) | FreeFree |
| 5 users | FreeFree (flat-rate) | FreeFree |
| 10 users | FreeFree (flat-rate) | FreeFree |
| 25 users | FreeFree (flat-rate) | FreeFree |
| 50 users | FreeFree (flat-rate) | FreeFree |
The plan that fits each team size, billed monthly, before add-ons and usage charges. Each cost opens that tool's pricing calculator for the team size.
Which One Should You Choose?
AWhy choose Amazon CloudFront
- Higher Reliability score (9/10 vs 7/10)
- Higher Support score (6/10 vs 4/10)
Why choose Cloudflare
- Higher Cost score (9/10 vs 6/10)
- Higher Ease of Use score (7/10 vs 5/10)
- Better fit for small business (7/10 vs 5/10)
- Better fit for startups (9/10 vs 7/10)
Pros & Cons
AAmazon CloudFront
Pros
- The network is very large, with more than 750 PoPs plus over 1,140 PoPs embedded inside ISP networks.
- Data transfer from AWS origins such as S3 and EC2 to CloudFront costs nothing, which lowers costs for workloads hosted on AWS.
- Flat-rate plans start at $15 a month with no overage charges, which makes bills predictable.
- It has strong compliance coverage, including PCI-DSS Level 1, HIPAA, SOC, ISO and FedRAMP Moderate.
- Two tiers of edge compute are available: CloudFront Functions at $0.10 per million invocations and Lambda@Edge for heavier code.
Cons
- G2 and Capterra reviewers report complex configuration and a steep learning curve for people new to AWS.
- Capterra-network reviewers rate customer support poorly, around 3.4 out of 5.
- Flat-rate plans lack some features, such as real-time logs, dedicated IP SSL and continuous deployment, and going over the allowance reduces performance.
- Dedicated IP SSL at $600 a month and Anycast Static IPs at $3,000 a month are expensive extras.
- Users on AWS re:Post and GitHub report cache invalidations that occasionally hang for hours or time out during deploys.
Cloudflare
Pros
- The free plan includes unmetered DDoS protection, a CDN, a WAF and universal SSL.
- R2 object storage charges no egress fees.
- Workers has very low entry pricing: a $5 monthly minimum and $0.30 per additional million requests.
- The Business plan adds a 100 percent uptime SLA and PCI DSS compliance for $200 a month billed annually.
Cons
- Reviewers report slow support on Free and Pro, which have no chat or phone support.
- Global outages in November and December 2025 disrupted many sites at the same time.
- Reviewers report billing problems, such as charges after cancelling add-ons.
- It offers no traditional shared hosting, VPS or dedicated servers, so you still need an origin host for conventional workloads.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Amazon CloudFront scores higher on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria: 7.9/10 against 7.6/10 for Cloudflare. The largest gap is in Cost: 6/10 for Amazon CloudFront and 9/10 for Cloudflare.
Both are free for 10 users.
Yes, both Amazon CloudFront and Cloudflare have a free plan.
Cloudflare is the better fit for small business: we rate it 7/10 for them, against 5/10 for Amazon CloudFront.
