Amazon CloudFront vs Cloudflare
Default scenario: At 20,000 GB egress / month, 500M requests / month, estimated bills are $240/yr for Cloudflare and $25,356/yr for Amazon CloudFront. That’s a $25,116 difference before accounting for different features or operating costs.
The services may differ in features, performance, support and the work you need to do yourself. Read the notes and test what matters to your setup.
Your selected usage
20,000 GB egress / month, 500M requests / month
- Amazon CloudFront: $25,356/yr estimated
- Cloudflare: $240/yr estimated
Estimated costs at different usage levels
| Usage | Amazon CloudFront | Cloudflare |
|---|---|---|
| 1 TB1,000 GB egress / month, 50M requests / month | $600/yr$0 egress + $50 requests | $240/yr$0 egress + $0 requests |
| 20 TB20,000 GB egress / month, 500M requests / month | $25,356/yr$1,613 egress + $500 requests | $240/yr$0 egress + $0 requests |
| 500 TB500,000 GB egress / month, 10B requests / month | $628,956/yr$42,413 egress + $10,000 requests | $240/yr$0 egress + $0 requests |
North America/Europe first-tier rates. Other regions and committed-use discounts differ. Try your own numbers against all cdn providers.
Side by side
| Amazon CloudFront | Cloudflare | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | AWS's global CDN, sold pay-as-you-go per GB and per request or as flat-rate monthly plans. | Global anycast CDN and security platform sold as flat per-domain plans without per-GB bandwidth fees on self-serve tiers. |
| Headquarters | 🇺🇸 United States | 🇺🇸 United States |
| Parent jurisdiction | 🇺🇸 United States (Amazon) | 🇺🇸 United States |
| EU self-serve plan | No / not documented | No / not documented |
| GDPR DPA | Yes | Yes |
| Provider type | Edge platform | Edge platform |
| Billing | payg | subscription |
| Free tier | Always free tier with 1 TB data transfer out and 10M HTTP(S) requests per month. | Free plan includes CDN caching with no bandwidth charge, for non-business-critical sites. |
| Open source | No | No |
| Source last checked | 2026-10-06 | 2026-10-06 |
| Pricing evidence | Published rates | Published rates |
Which should you choose?
Cloudflare has the lower estimated bill at every usage level we tested, from 2,000 GB egress / month, 50M requests / month to 2,000,000 GB egress / month, 50B requests / month.
Choose Amazon CloudFront if…
Our data shows no advantage on price, residency, jurisdiction or licensing. Compare features in the notes below.
Choose Cloudflare if…
- it has the lower estimated bill at 1 TB, 20 TB and 500 TB usage
Based on estimated list-price bills and the facts above. Features, performance and support aren’t scored.
Amazon CloudFront pricing
Calculated from the listed vendor rates; exclusions still apply.
| Bandwidth / GB | 10k requests |
|---|---|
| $0.085 | $0.01 |
Pay-as-you-go, US/Canada/Mexico and Europe: first 1 TB free, then $0.085/GB for the next 9 TB, $0.080 for the next 40 TB, $0.060 for the next 100 TB, down to $0.020 above 5 PB. HTTPS requests $0.0100 per 10k in the US and $0.0120 in Europe, after 10M free per month. Commits of about 10 TB/month get discounted private pricing. Flat-rate plans (aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/pricing/) bundle WAF, DNS and TLS with no overages: Free $0/mo, Pro $15/mo, Business $200/mo, Premium $1,000/mo. Origin fetches from AWS are free. CloudFront is not yet in the AWS European Sovereign Cloud.
Amazon CloudFront plan limits, full rates and cheaper alternatives · official pricing page
Cloudflare pricing
Calculated from the listed vendor rates; exclusions still apply. Per-domain website proxy pricing; not a general-purpose unlimited media CDN. Check content terms and multiply by the domains that need Pro.
| Base fee / month |
|---|
| $20 |
Plans are per domain. Modelled on Pro at $20/mo billed annually ($25 billed monthly). Business is $200/mo annually ($250 monthly). Self-serve plans have no per-GB bandwidth charge. Enterprise traffic is contract-based and priced individually. EU residency only via the Data Localization Suite (Enterprise add-on: Regional Services, Customer Metadata Boundary). The DPA covers self-serve and enterprise customers.
Cloudflare plan limits, full rates and cheaper alternatives · official pricing page
Frequently asked questions
Is Amazon CloudFront cheaper than Cloudflare?
Cloudflare has the lower estimated bill at every usage level we tested, from 2,000 GB egress / month, 50M requests / month to 2,000,000 GB egress / month, 50B requests / month. At 20,000 GB egress / month, 500M requests / month, the estimates are $25,356/yr for Amazon CloudFront and $240/yr for Cloudflare. Estimates use list prices and leave out features, support and operating costs.
Do Amazon CloudFront and Cloudflare offer EU data residency?
Neither documents EU data residency on a self-serve plan.
Do Amazon CloudFront and Cloudflare have a free tier or trial?
Amazon CloudFront: Always free tier with 1 TB data transfer out and 10M HTTP(S) requests per month. Cloudflare: Free plan includes CDN caching with no bandwidth charge, for non-business-critical sites.
Where are Amazon CloudFront and Cloudflare based?
Amazon CloudFront is headquartered in the United States and owned by Amazon (the United States). Cloudflare is headquartered in the United States.