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Amazon CloudFront vs Azure Front Door

SEPT 2026 audit

A comparison of Amazon CloudFront and Azure Front Door built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.

Reviewed by Palash BagchiUpdated 20 criteria comparedSources last checked

The short answer

Choose Amazon CloudFront if…

Teams already on AWS that want CDN bundled with other AWS services under one flat monthly price rather than itemized per-GB billing.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Choose Azure Front Door if…

Teams on Azure that want CDN, global load balancing and WAF as one combined entry point rather than separate products.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Consider something else if…

  • Amazon CloudFront: Traffic profile is unusual or very high volume — the flat-rate plans bundle a fixed allowance, and a metered pay-as-you-go CDN may price better outside that shape.
  • Azure Front Door: Budget-sensitive at small scale — no free tier and a $35/month base fee before any traffic is a higher floor than most pay-as-you-go CDNs in this category.

Neither quite fits? Every other option, ranked by iScore: Amazon CloudFront alternatives · Azure Front Door alternatives

18 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.

Visit Amazon CloudFront documentationVisit Azure Front Door documentation

No affiliate links, sponsored placements or paid rankings appear on this site. Ordering follows the sourced data and the stated criteria.

01.

At a glance.

CriterionAmazon CloudFrontAzure Front Door
Pricing
Free tier
Yes
No
Kind of free offerFree tierFree credit
Entry paid plan
Pro plan: $15/month.
Standard tier: $35/month base fee. Premium tier: $330/month base fee. Base fees are billed hourly and only for the hours used.
Pricing modelFlat-rate monthly plans bundling CloudFront with multiple AWS services and features, with no overage charges within plan limits.Multi-dimensional: an hourly base fee, outbound data transfer to clients, outbound transfer to origins, and per-request fees.
Egress over allowanceNo overage charges on the flat-rate plans; past the monthly allowance AWS may adjust delivery instead of billing - for example serving traffic from fewer or more distant edge locations. Data transfer allowance: 100 GB Free, 50 TB Pro/Business/Premium, Premium configurable up to 600 TB.North America (Zone 1): $0.083/GB for the first 10 TB/month, with tiered reductions at higher volumes.
Infrastructure
RegionsGlobal edge network: PoPs in 100+ cities across 50+ countries, plus 15 regional edge caches (RECs) sited within AWS Regions.Global service: Front Door is not deployed to an Azure region; the profile is a global resource distributed to all edge locations worldwide.
Uptime SLA99.9% monthly uptime, one figure with no configuration split.Not published as a web page. Microsoft consolidated its per-service SLAs into one downloadable document covering Azure, Dynamics 365, Office 365 and Intune; the former azure.microsoft.com SLA URLs now redirect to its licensing viewer.
CDN
Points of presenceHundreds of edge locations (exact count not published on the pricing page).192 edge locations across 109 metro cities, plus four edge locations in four Azure US Government cloud regions.
Compliance
SOC 2Listed as SOC-compliant on AWS's own compliance scope page. — Excludes content delivery through CloudFront Embedded Points of Presence.Listed among Azure's compliance offerings (SOC 1, SOC 2, SOC 3) on Microsoft's own compliance documentation — a platform-wide list, not scoped to this specific service.
ISO 27001Covered under AWS's account-wide ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification — not scoped per-service the way SOC, HIPAA and PCI DSS are on AWS's own site.Listed among Azure's compliance offerings (ISO 27001) on Microsoft's own compliance documentation — a platform-wide list, not scoped to this specific service.
HIPAAListed as a HIPAA-eligible service on AWS's own reference page. — Excludes content delivery through CloudFront Embedded Points of Presence.Listed among Azure's compliance offerings (HIPAA) on Microsoft's own compliance documentation — a platform-wide list, not scoped to this specific service.
GDPR / data residency
AWS customers can process personal data on all AWS services in compliance with GDPR, and choose the storage type and geographic region for their data.
Front Door is a global resource distributed to every edge location; the only location you choose stores the resource group's metadata. From the FAQ answer on which regions Front Door can be deployed in.
PCI DSSListed as PCI DSS-compliant on AWS's own compliance scope page. — Excludes content delivery through CloudFront Embedded Points of Presence.Listed among Azure's compliance offerings (PCI DSS) on Microsoft's own compliance documentation — a platform-wide list, not scoped to this specific service.
Encryption at restCloudFront Functions code and configuration is always stored in an encrypted format on the edge location PoPs and in CloudFront's other storage locations.Microsoft's security baseline for the service records that it stores no customer content at rest; in-transit encryption is on by default.
Customer-managed keys
Field-level encryption uses an RSA public key you supply: CloudFront encrypts the named POST fields at the edge and only your private key can decrypt them.
Azure Key Vault integration supported for customer keys, secrets and certificates; customer-configured, not enabled by default. Same baseline records the service stores no customer content at rest.
Role-based access controlIAM managed policies CloudFrontReadOnlyAccess and CloudFrontFullAccess attach to users, groups and roles, alongside custom identity-based policies.Azure RBAC built-in roles: CDN Profile Contributor manages CDN and Front Door Standard and Premium profiles and their endpoints. Control plane; the page also lists Front Door Domain and Secret Contributor/Reader roles.
Private networking / VPCVPC origins: CloudFront serves ALBs, NLBs and EC2 instances in private subnets over a private connection, with no public access to the origin. Listed as "Private Origins Within VPC" from the Business flat-rate plan upward on the CloudFront pricing page.Origins can be reached over Azure Private Link from a Front Door managed regional private network; documented for the Premium tier.
Dedicated infrastructureDedicated IP custom SSL costs $600/month per certificate; Anycast Static IPs provide a dedicated set of static IP addresses for distributions.Shared: all customers use a common infrastructure, with per-profile configuration isolation rather than dedicated capacity.

Only criteria both providers publish appear here; a tinted cell marks a real difference. Criteria only one of them documents are listed below, and an absence there means we found no source — not that the feature is missing. How we source this.

The small bar above a value is inetGeek's own lean toward that side — computed from the same facts shown, never a number the provider published. See the picker below "The short answer" to weigh only the criteria you care about.

02.

Where they differ.

Free tier

Amazon CloudFront
Yes
Azure Front Door
No
Sources (2) →

Kind of free offer

Amazon CloudFront
Free tier
Azure Front Door
Free credit
Sources (2) →

Entry paid plan

Amazon CloudFront
Pro plan: $15/month.
Azure Front Door
Standard tier: $35/month base fee. Premium tier: $330/month base fee. Base fees are billed hourly and only for the hours used.
Sources (2) →

Pricing model

Amazon CloudFront
Flat-rate monthly plans bundling CloudFront with multiple AWS services and features, with no overage charges within plan limits.
Azure Front Door
Multi-dimensional: an hourly base fee, outbound data transfer to clients, outbound transfer to origins, and per-request fees.
Sources (2) →
  • Amazon CloudFront Pricing ↗

    “Flat-rate pricing plans combine the CloudFront CDN with multiple AWS services and features into a monthly price with no overage charges.”

    Read 2026-09-11 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • Pricing — Azure Front Door ↗

    “Azure Front Door Standard/Premium billing is based on the following pricing dimensions: Base fees (i.e., fixed charge calculated on hourly basis) Outbound data transfer from edge to the client Outbound data transfer from edge to the origin Requests incoming from client to Front Door's edge location”

    Read 2026-09-14 · official pricing · Report a correction

Egress over allowance

Amazon CloudFront
No overage charges on the flat-rate plans; past the monthly allowance AWS may adjust delivery instead of billing - for example serving traffic from fewer or more distant edge locations. Data transfer allowance: 100 GB Free, 50 TB Pro/Business/Premium, Premium configurable up to 600 TB.
Azure Front Door
North America (Zone 1): $0.083/GB for the first 10 TB/month, with tiered reductions at higher volumes.
Sources (2) →

Regions

Amazon CloudFront
Global edge network: PoPs in 100+ cities across 50+ countries, plus 15 regional edge caches (RECs) sited within AWS Regions.
Azure Front Door
Global service: Front Door is not deployed to an Azure region; the profile is a global resource distributed to all edge locations worldwide.
Sources (2) →

Uptime SLA

Amazon CloudFront
99.9% monthly uptime, one figure with no configuration split.
Azure Front Door
Not published as a web page. Microsoft consolidated its per-service SLAs into one downloadable document covering Azure, Dynamics 365, Office 365 and Intune; the former azure.microsoft.com SLA URLs now redirect to its licensing viewer.
Sources (2) →

Points of presence

Amazon CloudFront
Hundreds of edge locations (exact count not published on the pricing page).
Azure Front Door
192 edge locations across 109 metro cities, plus four edge locations in four Azure US Government cloud regions.
Sources (2) →

SOC 2

Amazon CloudFront
Listed as SOC-compliant on AWS's own compliance scope page. — Excludes content delivery through CloudFront Embedded Points of Presence.
Azure Front Door
Listed among Azure's compliance offerings (SOC 1, SOC 2, SOC 3) on Microsoft's own compliance documentation — a platform-wide list, not scoped to this specific service.
Sources (2) →

ISO 27001

Amazon CloudFront
Covered under AWS's account-wide ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification — not scoped per-service the way SOC, HIPAA and PCI DSS are on AWS's own site.
Azure Front Door
Listed among Azure's compliance offerings (ISO 27001) on Microsoft's own compliance documentation — a platform-wide list, not scoped to this specific service.
Sources (2) →

HIPAA

Amazon CloudFront
Listed as a HIPAA-eligible service on AWS's own reference page. — Excludes content delivery through CloudFront Embedded Points of Presence.
Azure Front Door
Listed among Azure's compliance offerings (HIPAA) on Microsoft's own compliance documentation — a platform-wide list, not scoped to this specific service.
Sources (2) →

GDPR / data residency

Amazon CloudFront
AWS customers can process personal data on all AWS services in compliance with GDPR, and choose the storage type and geographic region for their data.
Azure Front Door
Front Door is a global resource distributed to every edge location; the only location you choose stores the resource group's metadata. From the FAQ answer on which regions Front Door can be deployed in.
Sources (2) →
  • GDPR — Amazon Web Services ↗

    “AWS customers can use all AWS services to process personal data [...] in compliance with the GDPR. [...] Customers have control of their customer data. With AWS, customers can: Determine where their customer data will be stored, including the type of storage and geographic region of that storage.”

    Read 2026-09-12 · official site · Report a correction

  • Azure Front Door Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) | Microsoft Learn ↗

    “The only location you choose when you create a Front Door is the location of the resource group, which determines where the resource group's metadata is stored. The Front Door profile is a global resource and its configuration is distributed to all edge locations worldwide.”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction

PCI DSS

Amazon CloudFront
Listed as PCI DSS-compliant on AWS's own compliance scope page. — Excludes content delivery through CloudFront Embedded Points of Presence.
Azure Front Door
Listed among Azure's compliance offerings (PCI DSS) on Microsoft's own compliance documentation — a platform-wide list, not scoped to this specific service.
Sources (2) →

Encryption at rest

Amazon CloudFront
CloudFront Functions code and configuration is always stored in an encrypted format on the edge location PoPs and in CloudFront's other storage locations.
Azure Front Door
Microsoft's security baseline for the service records that it stores no customer content at rest; in-transit encryption is on by default.
Sources (2) →

Customer-managed keys

Amazon CloudFront
Field-level encryption uses an RSA public key you supply: CloudFront encrypts the named POST fields at the edge and only your private key can decrypt them.
Azure Front Door
Azure Key Vault integration supported for customer keys, secrets and certificates; customer-configured, not enabled by default. Same baseline records the service stores no customer content at rest.
Sources (2) →

Role-based access control

Amazon CloudFront
IAM managed policies CloudFrontReadOnlyAccess and CloudFrontFullAccess attach to users, groups and roles, alongside custom identity-based policies.
Azure Front Door
Azure RBAC built-in roles: CDN Profile Contributor manages CDN and Front Door Standard and Premium profiles and their endpoints. Control plane; the page also lists Front Door Domain and Secret Contributor/Reader roles.
Sources (2) →

Private networking / VPC

Amazon CloudFront
VPC origins: CloudFront serves ALBs, NLBs and EC2 instances in private subnets over a private connection, with no public access to the origin. Listed as "Private Origins Within VPC" from the Business flat-rate plan upward on the CloudFront pricing page.
Azure Front Door
Origins can be reached over Azure Private Link from a Front Door managed regional private network; documented for the Premium tier.
Sources (2) →
  • Restrict access with VPC origins - Amazon CloudFront ↗

    “You can use CloudFront to deliver content from applications that are hosted in your virtual private cloud (VPC) private subnets. [...] You can use Application Load Balancers (ALBs), Network Load Balancers (NLBs), and EC2 instances in private subnets as VPC origins. [...] User requests go from CloudFront to the VPC origins over a private, secure connection”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction

  • Secure your Origin with Private Link in Azure Front Door Premium | Microsoft Learn ↗

    “Azure Front Door Premium can connect to your origin using Private Link. Your origin can be hosted in a virtual network or hosted as a PaaS service such as Azure Web App or Azure Storage. Private Link removes the need for your origin to be accessed publicly. [...] Front Door creates a private endpoint on your behalf from an Azure Front Door managed regional private network.”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction

Dedicated infrastructure

Amazon CloudFront
Dedicated IP custom SSL costs $600/month per certificate; Anycast Static IPs provide a dedicated set of static IP addresses for distributions.
Azure Front Door
Shared: all customers use a common infrastructure, with per-profile configuration isolation rather than dedicated capacity.
Sources (2) →
  • Amazon CloudFront pay-as-you-go pricing ↗

    “You pay $600 per month for each custom SSL certificate associated with one or more CloudFront distributions using the Dedicated IP version of custom SSL certificate support. [...] Amazon CloudFront Anycast Static IPs provide a dedicated set of static IP addresses for your CloudFront distributions.”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • Azure Front Door Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) | Microsoft Learn ↗

    “It uses a common infrastructure that all its customers share, but you can customize your own Front Door profile to configure your application's specific requirements. [...] Other customers' configurations can't affect your Front Door configuration, which is isolated from theirs.”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction

When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.

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03.

Documented by only one.

These criteria are published by one provider and not the other. An absence here means we have not found a source, not that the feature is missing — except where we say we read the other provider's own page on a given date and it does not state it. Those rows lean, and the provider can correct them with a link.

When the free offer endsAzure Front Door: 30 days.
Image optimizationAmazon CloudFront: Dynamic Image Transformation for Amazon CloudFront (formerly Serverless Image Handler): an AWS Solution you deploy into your own account for real-time image processing through the CloudFront CDN.
04.

Questions this comparison answers.

Entry paid plan: Amazon CloudFront or Azure Front Door?

Amazon CloudFront: Pro plan: $15/month.

Azure Front Door: Standard tier: $35/month base fee. Premium tier: $330/month base fee. Base fees are billed hourly and only for the hours used.

Free tier: Amazon CloudFront or Azure Front Door?

Amazon CloudFront: Yes

Azure Front Door: No

Egress over allowance: Amazon CloudFront or Azure Front Door?

Amazon CloudFront: No overage charges on the flat-rate plans; past the monthly allowance AWS may adjust delivery instead of billing - for example serving traffic from fewer or more distant edge locations. Data transfer allowance: 100 GB Free, 50 TB Pro/Business/Premium, Premium configurable up to 600 TB.

Azure Front Door: North America (Zone 1): $0.083/GB for the first 10 TB/month, with tiered reductions at higher volumes.

Should I choose Amazon CloudFront or Azure Front Door?

Pick Amazon CloudFront if Teams already on AWS that want CDN bundled with other AWS services under one flat monthly price rather than itemized per-GB billing.

Pick Azure Front Door if Teams on Azure that want CDN, global load balancing and WAF as one combined entry point rather than separate products.

Provider pages

Amazon CloudFrontAWS's CDN, sold in flat-rate monthly plans bundling CloudFront with other AWS services rather than metered bandwidth alone.Azure Front DoorMicrosoft's combined CDN, global entry point and app delivery layer, billed on base fee plus metered data transfer.

Related comparisons

Amazon CloudFront vs Bunny CDNAmazon CloudFront vs CloudflareAmazon CloudFront vs FastlyAmazon CloudFront vs KeyCDNAzure Front Door vs Bunny CDNAzure Front Door vs CloudflareAzure Front Door vs FastlyAzure Front Door vs KeyCDN

Comments

Every page here is sourced and dated.