Amazon CloudFront vs Portkey (2026): Pricing, Features & Verdict
Amazon CloudFront is our pick, scoring 7.9/10 against 7.6/10 for Portkey on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria. Its biggest advantage: higher Customization score (9/10 vs 7/10). For 10 users, Amazon CloudFront and Portkey are both free; both Amazon CloudFront and Portkey 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.
Portkey
7.6/10
Portkey is an AI gateway and LLMOps control plane that routes, monitors, and governs requests to 1,600+ LLMs for engineering teams and enterprises.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | A Amazon CloudFront | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 7.9/10 | 7.6/10 |
| Integration | 9/10 | 9/10 |
| Support | 6/10 | 6/10 |
| Cost | 6/10 | 7/10 |
| Customization | 9/10 | 7/10 |
| Security | 9/10 | 8/10 |
| Reliability | 9/10 | 8/10 |
| Ease of Use | 5/10 | 8/10 |
| Analytics | 7/10 | 9/10 |
| Scalability | 10/10 | 8/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Cheapest paid plan | $15/mo Pro (flat-rate) | $49/mo Production |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | Free Free (flat-rate) | Free Open Source |
| Features | ||
| API and CLI | ||
| Uptime SLA | ||
| Content Delivery Network | Not listed | |
| DDoS Protection | Not listed | |
| Dedicated Servers | ||
| Free SSL Certificates | Not listed | |
| Managed WordPress | ||
| Multiple Regions | Not listed | |
| Object Storage | Not listed | |
| Serverless Functions | Not listed | |
| Shared Hosting | ||
| VPS Hosting | Not listed | |
Amazon CloudFront vs Portkey cost by team size
Amazon CloudFront and Portkey cost the same at every team size we checked.
| Team size | Amazon CloudFront | Portkey |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | FreeFree (flat-rate) | FreeOpen Source |
| 5 users | FreeFree (flat-rate) | FreeOpen Source |
| 10 users | FreeFree (flat-rate) | FreeOpen Source |
| 25 users | FreeFree (flat-rate) | FreeOpen Source |
| 50 users | FreeFree (flat-rate) | FreeOpen Source |
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 Portkey suit
| Audience | Amazon CloudFront | Portkey |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | 9/10Setup takes a few lines of code with OpenAI-compatible SDKs, and there is a free tier and an open-source gateway. |
| Enterprise | 8/10It holds PCI-DSS, HIPAA, SOC and FedRAMP Moderate compliance, offers custom pricing, and runs on a very large edge network. | 8/10The Enterprise plan adds SSO, RBAC, VPC deployment, and HIPAA/SOC 2 support, and the product is now part of Palo Alto Networks' Prisma AIRS. |
| SaaS Companies | 8/10It integrates natively with AWS origins and supports blue/green continuous deployment, a good fit for SaaS products hosted on AWS. | 8/10Built for teams running production GenAI features across multiple LLM providers. |
| Startups | 7/10The always-free tier and the $15 Pro flat-rate plan keep early costs low. | 7/10A free tier and a $49 Production plan keep the entry cost low. |
| Small Business | 5/10Reviewers cite configuration complexity and costs as hurdles for smaller teams that are not technical. | Not rated |
Which One Should You Choose?
AWhy choose Amazon CloudFront
- Higher Customization score (9/10 vs 7/10)
- Higher Scalability score (10/10 vs 8/10)
Why choose Portkey
- Higher Ease of Use score (8/10 vs 5/10)
- Higher Analytics score (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.
Portkey
Pros
- Unified API covering more than 1,600 models, with automatic fallbacks, retries, and load balancing.
- Detailed logs and traces show the latency, cost, and retry path of each request.
- An open-source core and a free tier let developers try it before paying.
- Enterprise governance features include budgets, rate limits, RBAC, SSO, and audit logs, with VPC deployment available.
Cons
- Since the 2026 acquisition, paid plans route through Palo Alto Networks' Prisma AIRS, which brings uncertainty about future pricing and roadmap.
- You pay for the gateway on top of LLM provider costs, and provider billing stays separate.
- Below Enterprise, support is community-only, and the free plan keeps logs for just 3 days.
- It may be more platform than needed for small prototypes that want only a simple proxy.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Amazon CloudFront scores higher on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria: 7.9/10 against 7.6/10 for Portkey. The largest gap is in Ease of Use: 5/10 for Amazon CloudFront and 8/10 for Portkey.
Both are free for 10 users.
Yes, both Amazon CloudFront and Portkey have a free plan.
