Amazon CloudFront vs Amazon EC2 (2026): Pricing, Features & Verdict
Amazon CloudFront is our pick, scoring 7.9/10 against 7.6/10 for Amazon EC2 on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria. Its biggest advantage: higher Cost score (6/10 vs 4/10). For 10 users, Amazon CloudFront and Amazon EC2 are both free; both Amazon CloudFront and Amazon EC2 have a free plan.
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.
Amazon EC2
7.6/10
Amazon EC2 is AWS's on-demand virtual server service, offering resizable compute instances billed per second for businesses of any size.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | A Amazon CloudFront | A Amazon EC2 |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 7.9/10 | 7.6/10 |
| Integration | 9/10 | 10/10 |
| Support | 6/10 | 6/10 |
| Cost | 6/10 | 4/10 |
| Customization | 9/10 | 10/10 |
| Security | 9/10 | 9/10 |
| Reliability | 9/10 | 9/10 |
| Ease of Use | 5/10 | 4/10 |
| Analytics | 7/10 | 7/10 |
| Scalability | 10/10 | 10/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Cheapest paid plan | $15/mo Pro (flat-rate) | Contact for pricing |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | Free Free (flat-rate) | Free Free Tier |
| Features | ||
| Dedicated Servers | ||
| API and CLI | ||
| Multiple Regions | ||
| Uptime SLA | ||
| Cloud Compute | Not listed | |
| Content Delivery Network | Not listed | |
| DDoS Protection | Not listed | |
| Free SSL Certificates | Not listed | |
| Managed Kubernetes | Not listed | |
| Managed WordPress | ||
| Serverless Functions | Not listed | |
| Shared Hosting | ||
Amazon CloudFront vs Amazon EC2 cost by team size
Amazon CloudFront and Amazon EC2 cost the same at every team size we checked.
| Team size | Amazon CloudFront | Amazon EC2 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | FreeFree (flat-rate) | FreeFree Tier |
| 5 users | FreeFree (flat-rate) | FreeFree Tier |
| 10 users | FreeFree (flat-rate) | FreeFree Tier |
| 25 users | FreeFree (flat-rate) | FreeFree Tier |
| 50 users | FreeFree (flat-rate) | FreeFree Tier |
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.
Who Amazon CloudFront and Amazon EC2 suit
| Audience | Amazon CloudFront | Amazon EC2 |
|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | 8/10It holds PCI-DSS, HIPAA, SOC and FedRAMP Moderate compliance, offers custom pricing, and runs on a very large edge network. | 9/10Provides a 99.99% region-level SLA, Dedicated Hosts for software licensing, and commitment discounts suited to large estates. |
| SaaS Companies | 8/10It integrates natively with AWS origins and supports blue/green continuous deployment, a good fit for SaaS products hosted on AWS. | 9/10Auto Scaling and multi-AZ deployment support production SaaS workloads. |
| Small Business | 5/10Reviewers cite configuration complexity and costs as hurdles for smaller teams that are not technical. | 4/10The complexity and unpredictable bills make simpler VPS hosts a better fit for many small firms. |
| Developers | 9/10It offers a full API, works with CloudFormation and the SDKs, and runs code at the edge, which suits engineers who want deep control. | 9/10Offers full root control, API, CLI, and SDK access, and a wide range of instance types for building and testing. |
| Startups | 7/10The always-free tier and the $15 Pro flat-rate plan keep early costs low. | 7/10Free Tier credits and per-second billing help early teams, but cost management takes expertise. |
| IT Teams | Not rated | 8/10Broad infrastructure control and monitoring through CloudWatch. |
Which One Should You Choose?
AWhy choose Amazon CloudFront
- Higher Cost score (6/10 vs 4/10)
- Higher Ease of Use score (5/10 vs 4/10)
AWhy choose Amazon EC2
- Higher Integration score (10/10 vs 9/10)
- Higher Customization score (10/10 vs 9/10)
- Includes Dedicated Servers, which Amazon CloudFront lacks
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.
AAmazon EC2
Pros
- Billing is per second with a 60-second minimum, so short-lived workloads cost less than under hourly billing.
- Spot capacity at up to 90% off and Savings Plans at up to 72% off give large discounts to teams that plan for them.
- The region-level SLA of 99.99% for multi-AZ deployments includes credits of up to 100%.
- A very wide choice of instance families covers GPU, ARM, memory-heavy, and bare-metal workloads, as well as macOS.
- Native integration with S3, EBS, load balancers, Auto Scaling, and container services is a strength reviewers often mention.
Cons
- Reviewers cite cost as the most common drawback, especially EBS storage and charges that keep running on stopped instances with attached storage.
- Bills are hard to predict because no flat-rate plans are published.
- The learning curve is steep, and some users find the number of options overwhelming.
- Some reviewers find configuration such as AMI upgrades and load balancing complicated.
- The single-instance SLA is only 99.5%, so high availability requires a multi-AZ design.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Amazon CloudFront scores higher on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria: 7.9/10 against 7.6/10 for Amazon EC2. The largest gap is in Cost: 6/10 for Amazon CloudFront and 4/10 for Amazon EC2.
Both are free for 10 users.
Yes, both Amazon CloudFront and Amazon EC2 have a free plan.
Amazon EC2 has Dedicated Servers, which Amazon CloudFront lacks.
