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What's the Difference Between Amazon CloudFront and AWS Global Accelerator?

Compare Amazon CloudFront and AWS Global Accelerator side by side — features, pricing, and ideal use cases to help you choose the right product.

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Comparisons
Amazon CloudFront
AWS Global Accelerator
Category

Networking, CDN

Networking, Traffic acceleration

Description

Global content delivery network to accelerate web and API performance

Improve global application availability and performance using the AWS global network.

Best for
  • Website acceleration
  • API acceleration
  • Video streaming
  • Software distribution
  • Global applications
  • Gaming
  • IoT
  • Voice/video
  • Health checks
Key features
  • Edge locations worldwide
  • Lambda@Edge
  • Origin Shield
  • Real-time metrics
  • DDoS protection
  • Static anycast IPs
  • Instant failover
  • Fine-grained traffic control
  • DDoS protection
  • Health checking
Pricing model

Pay per data transfer out + requests

Fixed hourly rate + data transfer premium

Free tier

Yes

No

Expert take

“CloudFront reduces latency by caching content at 400+ edge locations worldwide. For dynamic content, it still helps because the AWS backbone network between edge and origin is faster than the public internet. Pair it with Origin Shield to collapse cache-fill requests from multiple edge locations into one.”
— Riku Kobayashi, re:Post Top Contributor [profile]

“Global Accelerator routes TCP/UDP traffic over the AWS backbone rather than the public internet, providing consistent performance regardless of user location. Unlike CloudFront (which caches content), Global Accelerator accelerates non-cacheable traffic like APIs, gaming, and VoIP.”
— Gary McLean, re:Post Top Contributor [profile]

Product page

When to use Amazon CloudFront or AWS Global Accelerator

Use Amazon CloudFront when:

  • Website acceleration
  • API acceleration
  • Video streaming
  • Software distribution

Learn more about Amazon CloudFront »

Use AWS Global Accelerator when:

  • Global applications
  • Gaming
  • IoT
  • Voice/video
  • Health checks

Learn more about AWS Global Accelerator »

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