Amazon CloudFront vs WP Engine Comparison
Compare Amazon CloudFront vs WP Engine 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.
WP Engine
6.3/10
Managed WordPress hosting platform with staging, automated updates, backups, CDN and security tooling for businesses, agencies and enterprise sites.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | A Amazon CloudFront | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 7.9/10 | 6.3/10 |
| Integration | 9/10 | 7/10 |
| Support | 6/10 | 7/10 |
| Cost | 6/10 | 3/10 |
| Customization | 9/10 | 5/10 |
| Security | 9/10 | 8/10 |
| Reliability | 9/10 | 7/10 |
| Ease of Use | 5/10 | 7/10 |
| Analytics | 7/10 | 5/10 |
| Scalability | 10/10 | 7/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | Yes | No |
| Cheapest paid plan | $15/mo Pro (flat-rate) | Contact for pricing |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | Free Free (flat-rate) | Contact for pricing |
| Features | ||
| Managed WordPress | ||
| Shared Hosting | ||
| Content Delivery Network | ||
| DDoS Protection | ||
| Free SSL Certificates | ||
| Multiple Regions | ||
| Uptime SLA | ||
| API and CLI | Not listed | |
| Automatic Backups | Not listed | |
| Dedicated Servers | Not listed | |
| Git Deployments | Not listed | |
| Managed Kubernetes | Not listed | |
| Serverless Functions | Not listed | |
Amazon CloudFront vs WP Engine cost by team size
| Team size | Amazon CloudFront | WP Engine |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | FreeFree (flat-rate) | Contact for pricing |
| 5 users | FreeFree (flat-rate) | Contact for pricing |
| 10 users | FreeFree (flat-rate) | Contact for pricing |
| 25 users | FreeFree (flat-rate) | Contact for pricing |
| 50 users | FreeFree (flat-rate) | Contact for pricing |
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 (WP Engine does not)
- Higher Customization score (9/10 vs 5/10)
- Higher Cost score (6/10 vs 3/10)
- Better fit for developers (9/10 vs 7/10)
Why choose WP Engine
- Higher Ease of Use score (7/10 vs 5/10)
- Higher Support score (7/10 vs 6/10)
- Includes Managed WordPress, which Amazon CloudFront lacks
- Includes Shared Hosting, 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.
WP Engine
Pros
- Every plan includes WordPress-specific caching, a global CDN, daily backups and free SSL.
- Developer tools include staging environments, SSH and Git CI/CD on the Business tier.
- G2 reviewers rate support highly, and Business and higher plans add phone support.
- Every plan includes Genesis Blocks and 10 premium themes.
- Business and higher plans come with a 99.99% uptime SLA.
Cons
- Prices are high, and reviewers report large increases at renewal after the intro pricing ends.
- Visit and storage caps lead to overage fees, and bot traffic counts toward visits.
- More than 60 plugins are banned, including many caching and backup plugins.
- No email hosting is included.
- Uptime monitoring, APM and advanced WAF are sold as paid add-ons.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Amazon CloudFront scores higher on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria: 7.9/10 against 6.3/10 for WP Engine. The largest gap is in Customization: 9/10 for Amazon CloudFront and 5/10 for WP Engine.
Amazon CloudFront has a free plan; WP Engine does not list one.
Amazon CloudFront is the better fit for developers: we rate it 9/10 for them, against 7/10 for WP Engine.
WP Engine has Managed WordPress and Shared Hosting, which Amazon CloudFront lacks.
