Amazon CloudFront vs phoenixNAP Comparison
Compare Amazon CloudFront vs phoenixNAP 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.
phoenixNAP
6.5/10
phoenixNAP is an infrastructure provider whose services include API-driven Bare Metal Cloud, dedicated servers, colocation, object storage, and backup for developers and IT teams.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | A Amazon CloudFront | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 7.9/10 | 6.5/10 |
| Integration | 9/10 | 7/10 |
| Support | 6/10 | 7/10 |
| Cost | 6/10 | 5/10 |
| Customization | 9/10 | 8/10 |
| Security | 9/10 | 7/10 |
| Reliability | 9/10 | 7/10 |
| Ease of Use | 5/10 | 6/10 |
| Analytics | 7/10 | 4/10 |
| Scalability | 10/10 | 7/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | Yes | No |
| Cheapest paid plan | $15/mo Pro (flat-rate) | $616/mo Bare Metal Cloud a2 |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | Free Free (flat-rate) | $616/mo Bare Metal Cloud a2 |
| Features | ||
| Dedicated Servers | ||
| API and CLI | ||
| DDoS Protection | ||
| Multiple Regions | ||
| Cloud Compute | Not listed | |
| Content Delivery Network | Not listed | |
| Free SSL Certificates | Not listed | |
| Managed Kubernetes | Not listed | |
| Managed WordPress | Not listed | |
| Object Storage | Not listed | |
| Serverless Functions | Not listed | |
| Shared Hosting | Not listed | |
| Uptime SLA | Not listed | |
Amazon CloudFront vs phoenixNAP cost by team size
Amazon CloudFront costs less at every team size we checked.
| Team size | Amazon CloudFront | phoenixNAP |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | FreeFree (flat-rate) | $616/moBare Metal Cloud a2 |
| 5 users | FreeFree (flat-rate) | $616/moBare Metal Cloud a2 |
| 10 users | FreeFree (flat-rate) | $616/moBare Metal Cloud a2 |
| 25 users | FreeFree (flat-rate) | $616/moBare Metal Cloud a2 |
| 50 users | FreeFree (flat-rate) | $616/moBare Metal Cloud a2 |
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
- Has a free plan (phoenixNAP does not)
- Lower estimated cost for 10 users: Free vs $616/mo
- Higher Analytics score (7/10 vs 4/10)
- Higher Scalability score (10/10 vs 7/10)
- Better fit for small business (5/10 vs 3/10)
Why choose phoenixNAP
- Higher Support score (7/10 vs 6/10)
- Higher Ease of Use score (6/10 vs 5/10)
- 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.
phoenixNAP
Pros
- Single-tenant bare metal servers can be provisioned by API, CLI, or Terraform and billed by the hour.
- Integrates natively with Terraform, Ansible, and Pulumi, and can deploy servers with SUSE Rancher pre-installed for Kubernetes.
- Hardware options range from small Xeon E3 machines to dual-socket servers with 1 TB of RAM and Ampere Arm servers.
- DDoS protection and 24/7 support by phone, ticket, and chat are included.
Cons
- Prices are higher than traditional budget dedicated hosts such as Hetzner or OVHcloud.
- Servers are unmanaged, so the customer handles patching and administration.
- There is no shared hosting or managed WordPress for simple websites.
- Few public user reviews are available; G2 shows only one.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Amazon CloudFront scores higher on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria: 7.9/10 against 6.5/10 for phoenixNAP. The largest gap is in Analytics: 7/10 for Amazon CloudFront and 4/10 for phoenixNAP.
Amazon CloudFront costs less for 10 users: free on its Free (flat-rate) plan, against about $616/mo on its Bare Metal Cloud a2 plan for phoenixNAP, billed monthly.
Amazon CloudFront has a free plan; phoenixNAP does not list one.
Amazon CloudFront is the better fit for small business: we rate it 5/10 for them, against 3/10 for phoenixNAP.
PhoenixNAP has Dedicated Servers, which Amazon CloudFront lacks.
