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Technology · Servers

Amazon CloudFront

aws.amazon.com

Amazon CloudFront is a content delivery network from Amazon Web Services. It is sold on flat-rate plans or pay-as-you-go pricing.[1][2]

Amazon CloudFront is a fast, highly secure content delivery network (CDN) service that is part of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) ecosystem. It excels at delivering data, videos, applications, and APIs to customers globally with impressively low latency and high transfer speeds. CloudFront integrates seamlessly with other AWS services, making it an excellent choice for businesses already using AWS. It offers advanced features such as real-time metrics, easy-to-use APIs, and Lambda@Edge for running custom code closer to users. CloudFront provides robust security features, including field-level encryption and integration with AWS Shield for DDoS protection. With its pay-as-you-go pricing model and global network of edge locations, Amazon CloudFront is a scalable and cost-effective solution for businesses of all sizes looking to optimize their content delivery.

Amazon CloudFront belongs toCDNcategory.

Free plan

A free plan at $0 a month, for small sites and hobby projects[2]

Pro plan

$15 a month per distribution, with no overage charges[2]

Pricing model

Pay-as-you-go pricing is also offered[2]

Custom plans

Custom pricing is quoted by a sales contact[2]

335websites

use it — 13.1% of the 2,555 websites we scanned in the last 12 months

#2of 29

tools in its category seen in our scans (we recognize 69)

131public pages

on UptimeCard — open any of them to see how that site is doing

In short: a CDN that bills on a flat monthly plan or per use. Plans set usage allowances, and the flat-rate plans carry no overage charges.[2]

10.38% of all websites we track run Amazon CloudFront▼ 0.03 points since 20 Sep

Should you use Amazon CloudFront?

The 10-second version, from the vendor’s own pages and what we see in our scans

Amazon CloudFront fits if…

  • Your site already runs on AWS and you want the CDN on the same account[2]Flat-rate plans bundle CloudFront with other AWS services.
  • You want one monthly price with no overage charges[2]The flat-rate plans are priced per month.

Look elsewhere if…

  • You want a CDN with a free plan for personal projects, outside AWS[3]Cloudflare also lists a free plan.
The plan price applies to each distribution[2]
Higher plans cost more, and the top plan is priced at $1,000 a month[2]

Products and plans

CloudFront is one service in a bundle of AWS products on the flat-rate plans

Amazon CloudFront

This page

A content delivery network with low latency[1]

AWS Shield Standard

DDoS protection included at no additional charge[1]

Amazon Route 53 DNS

DNS included in the flat-rate plans[2]

AWS WAF

Web application firewall and DDoS protection in the flat-rate plans[2]

Plans of Amazon CloudFront· CloudFront flat-rate plans, per distribution, as listed for the United States[2]

Free

Free/ month

For hobbyists, learners, and developers getting started

  • Includes the CloudFront CDN and TLS certificate

Pro

$15/ month

Launch and grow small websites, blogs, and applications

  • No overage charges

Business

$200/ month

Protect and accelerate business applications

  • AWS WAF and DDoS protection

The Premium plan is listed at $1,000 a month per distribution, with more usage allowances[2]

Support and help for Amazon CloudFront

How the vendor says you can reach it, and the public help community

Sales contact

Custom pricing is quoted after you connect with sales[2]

Stack Overflow

5,016 questions[4]

[amazon-cloudfront] questions

How Amazon CloudFront sites protect themselves

Share of the 335 sites we scanned that run each protection

HSTS69% · 232 sites

HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) informs browsers that the site should only be accessed using HTTPS

reCAPTCHA28% · 95 sites

reCAPTCHA is a free service from Google that helps protect websites from spam and abuse

Protections add up, they do not replace each other: a site can run all of them.

What sites use Amazon CloudFront for

An estimate from UptimeCard's technology map of 111 public sites

Runs the whole site81 sites

aegisys.com · aiir.com · altium.com

Hosts help, docs or support content19 sites

aic.status.akamai.com · articulatestatus.com · billcomstatus.com

Runs the marketing site8 sites

advapacs.com · emerchantpay.com · freshsales.io

Runs a shop or catalog2 sites

klarna.com · payrexx.com

Rough guide, not a measurement: each description is written automatically from the site’s technology stack and the site has not confirmed it. A site is counted once, in the first group its description fits (shop, help and docs, blog, marketing site; otherwise the whole site). Descriptions that only guess (“likely”, “may”) are left out.

At a glance

UptimeCard's own scans and tests of 2,555 websites · refreshed weekly

How Amazon CloudFront sites scoreout of 100 · hover or tap a score for details

46PerformancePooraverage site: 5087AccessibilityGoodaverage site: 8996Best practicesGoodaverage site: 9392SEOGoodaverage site: 92

Page load time

Loads about as fast as the average site

Amazon CloudFront sites
4.6 s
All sites
4.3 s

Most Amazon CloudFront sites load in 3.3–7.5 s. Home page weight: 4.1 MB vs 3.3 MB for all sites. 111 public sites measured.

Where are they hosted?

Mostly Amazon Web Services and Cloudflare

  • Amazon Web Services83%
  • Cloudflare5%
  • Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia1%
  • Dailymotion S.A.1%
  • Other11%
United States 80%Canada 7%Germany 2%

Who uses it?

Technology and Software is the biggest group

Technology and Software60%
Business Services8%
Software as a Service (SaaS)1.3× avg8%
Educational Resources5%

Share of 131 classified public sites. “× average” compares with all 961 public sites.

Browser-security check

41% of graded sites pass

13of 32 score B or better

Rates each site’s own security settings, not Amazon CloudFront. 32 public sites graded so far.

How Amazon CloudFront sites are built

Closest partners. The number says how many times more often the tool runs on Amazon CloudFront sites than on an average website. Hover a partner for its share of sites.

AWS Certificate Manager6×Amazon S33×Emotion2×

Stacks we see most. Tools that tend to run together with Amazon CloudFront on the same websites. The percentage is the share of all 335 Amazon CloudFront sites that run the whole stack.

5 stacks · swipe, drag or use the arrows
#1

Amazon CloudFront + AWS Certificate Manager + Emotion

6%20 of 335 sites
#2

Amazon CloudFront + AWS Certificate Manager + Amazon S3 + Contentful

3.6%12 of 335 sites
#3

Amazon CloudFront + AWS Certificate Manager + styled-components

4.2%14 of 335 sites
#4

Amazon CloudFront + AWS Certificate Manager + Express

2.1%7 of 335 sites
#5

Amazon CloudFront + Angular + Zone.js

2.1%7 of 335 sites

Usually installed alongside

The bigger the bubble, the more of the 335 Amazon CloudFront sites also run the tool. Colour shows what the tool does. Hover or tap a bubble for details.

Google Tag Manager57%Google Analytics48%Facebook Pixel18%Linkedin Insight Tag17%OneTrust19%Microsoft Advertising14%DoubleClick Floodlight11%Cart Functionality10%
Tag managerAnalyticsCookie consentAdvertisingOnline store

Similar tools in its category

CDN: 69 tools known, 29 seen in our scans

Cloudflare1,035 sitesAlternativejsDelivr321 sitesAlternativecdnjs245 sitesAlternativeAkamai205 sitesAlternativeGoogle Hosted Libraries144 sitesAlternativeUnpkg105 sitesAlternativejQuery CDN89 sitesAlternativeGoogle Cloud CDN82 sitesAlternativeAmazon S3184 sitesUsed together

How websites combine Amazon CloudFront with other tools

Relationships found on the websites that use it, from the same map status pages show.

Built on a platform 108Integrates with another 85Needs another tool 69Complements another tool 40Overlaps with another 16

Websites using Amazon CloudFront

335 websites use Amazon CloudFront: 13.1% of the 2,555 websites we scanned in the last 12 months. A selection is shown below.

Scores are out of 100: P Performance · A Accessibility · B Best practices · S SEO. Green 80+, yellow 65–79, orange 50–64, red below 50. The dot shows whether our last scan found the site failing (red) or not (green); Red, amber or blue: an active incident on the site's status page (outage, degraded, maintenance) or a failing scan; amber also means a certificate ending within 30 days. Hover the dot for details.

Who is behind Amazon CloudFront

From its own pages and public records, with sources

Operated by

Amazon Web Services, Inc.[1]

Questions about Amazon CloudFront

Is there a free plan?
Yes. The Free plan is listed at $0 a month for hobby projects and small sites.[2]
Are there overage charges on flat-rate plans?
The vendor says flat-rate plans have no overage charges, even during traffic spikes or attacks.[2]
How many websites use Amazon CloudFront?
We found Amazon CloudFront on 335 of the 2,555 websites we scanned in the last 12 months (13.1%). 131 of them have a public status page.
What is Amazon CloudFront often used with?
Among the websites we scan, Amazon CloudFront is often found alongside AWS Certificate Manager (67.8% of its sites), reCAPTCHA (28.4% of its sites), Node.js (24.8% of its sites).
What are the alternatives to Amazon CloudFront?
Other CDNs we recognize include Cloudflare, jsDelivr, cdnjs, Akamai.

Is your website built with Amazon CloudFront?

UptimeCard checks it around the clock, tells you the minute it stops answering, and gives your visitors a status page.

Monitor my site freeCreate a status page