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Amazon CloudFront vs KeyCDN

SEPT 2026 audit

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

Reviewed by Palash BagchiUpdated 21 criteria comparedSources last checked

Adoption share

BuiltWith counts — how much more of the web runs Amazon CloudFront than KeyCDN, among the sites BuiltWith actually detects. Measured . Source: BuiltWith.

Amazon CloudFront99.9% · 2,703,106 sites
KeyCDN0.1% · 3,211 sites

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 KeyCDN if…

Low-commitment testing or small sites — no free tier, but the $4/month floor and no-commitment billing make it cheap to try against real traffic.

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.
  • KeyCDN: Bandwidth volume is large — $0.04/GB is the highest entry-tier bandwidth rate of the CDNs sourced here for North America/Europe.

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

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

Visit Amazon CloudFront documentationVisit KeyCDN 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 CloudFrontKeyCDN
Pricing
Free tier
Yes
No
Kind of free offerFree tierNo free offer — The first 3 zones are free, but traffic is not: the account floor is a $4 monthly minimum.
Entry paid plan
Pro plan: $15/month.
No plan tiers: pay-as-you-go with a $4 per month minimum charge on combined account usage, and credits must be topped up with a minimum $49 payment.
Pricing modelFlat-rate monthly plans bundling CloudFront with multiple AWS services and features, with no overage charges within plan limits.Pay-as-you-go, tiered by volume, with no commitment required.
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.$0.04/GB for North America and Europe, first 10 TB per month.
Infrastructure
RegionsGlobal edge network: PoPs in 100+ cities across 50+ countries, plus 15 regional edge caches (RECs) sited within AWS Regions.Six regions listed on the network page — North America, Europe, Asia, Oceania, Africa (Johannesburg only) and Latin America — covering 50 named cities counted from the region tables. The same page separately claims 60+ data centers, so cities are not points of presence one-for-one. Counted from the six region tables; KeyCDN publishes no per-region total.
CDN
Points of presenceHundreds of edge locations (exact count not published on the pricing page).60+ data centers in 40+ countries across 6 continents.
Image optimizationDynamic 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.Image Processing: $0.40 per 1,000 operations, transforming and optimizing images in real time via query parameters.
Compliance
ISO 27001
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.
Stated of the data centers that host KeyCDN's points of presence: they meet ISO 27001 security and compliance standards. Network-page claim about the data center providers, not a KeyCDN corporate certification.
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.
Committed to GDPR as the data processor (customer is controller); a DPA is issued on support request; client IP addresses are anonymized in delivery logs.

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
KeyCDN
No
Sources (2) →

Kind of free offer

Amazon CloudFront
Free tier
KeyCDN
No free offer — The first 3 zones are free, but traffic is not: the account floor is a $4 monthly minimum.
Sources (2) →
  • Amazon CloudFront Pricing ↗

    “Start with the $0/month Free plan and upgrade to access more capabilities and larger usage allowances. [...] Monthly price per distribution $0/month No overage charges [...] Requests 1M 10M 125M 500M”

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

  • KeyCDN Pricing ↗

    “The first 3 Zones are included for free. Each additional Zone is $1 per month. [...] Our minimum charge is $4 per month based on the combined total account traffic volume and other services used.”

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

Entry paid plan

Amazon CloudFront
Pro plan: $15/month.
KeyCDN
No plan tiers: pay-as-you-go with a $4 per month minimum charge on combined account usage, and credits must be topped up with a minimum $49 payment.
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.
KeyCDN
Pay-as-you-go, tiered by volume, with no commitment required.
Sources (2) →

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.
KeyCDN
$0.04/GB for North America and Europe, first 10 TB per month.
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.
KeyCDN
Six regions listed on the network page — North America, Europe, Asia, Oceania, Africa (Johannesburg only) and Latin America — covering 50 named cities counted from the region tables. The same page separately claims 60+ data centers, so cities are not points of presence one-for-one. Counted from the six region tables; KeyCDN publishes no per-region total.
Sources (2) →

Points of presence

Amazon CloudFront
Hundreds of edge locations (exact count not published on the pricing page).
KeyCDN
60+ data centers in 40+ countries across 6 continents.
Sources (2) →

Image optimization

Amazon 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.
KeyCDN
Image Processing: $0.40 per 1,000 operations, transforming and optimizing images in real time via query parameters.
Sources (2) →
  • Dynamic Image Transformation for Amazon CloudFront ↗

    “Dynamic Image Transformation for Amazon CloudFront (formerly Serverless Image Handler) enables real-time image processing through the global content delivery network (CDN) of Amazon CloudFront. [...] This AWS Solution helps you automatically optimize visual content delivery”

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

  • KeyCDN Pricing ↗

    “Image Processing costs $0.40 per 1,000 operations. Transform and optimize images in real time with simple query parameters.”

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

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.
KeyCDN
Stated of the data centers that host KeyCDN's points of presence: they meet ISO 27001 security and compliance standards. Network-page claim about the data center providers, not a KeyCDN corporate certification.
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.
KeyCDN
Committed to GDPR as the data processor (customer is controller); a DPA is issued on support request; client IP addresses are anonymized in delivery logs.
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

  • GDPR - KeyCDN ↗

    “KeyCDN customers typically act as data controllers, whereas KeyCDN acts as the data processor. [...] you are required by law to complete a data processing agreement (DPA). Please open a support request to receive the agreement. [...] Client IP addresses are anonymized within the content delivery logs provided.”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official site · 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.

What the free plan includesKeyCDN: The first 3 zones are included at no charge; traffic itself is billed from the first gigabyte with no free allowance.
Uptime SLAAmazon CloudFront: 99.9% monthly uptime, one figure with no configuration split.
Support on entry paid planKeyCDN: 24/7 technical support for all customers at no additional cost.
SOC 2Amazon CloudFront: Listed as SOC-compliant on AWS's own compliance scope page. — Excludes content delivery through CloudFront Embedded Points of Presence.
HIPAAAmazon CloudFront: Listed as a HIPAA-eligible service on AWS's own reference page. — Excludes content delivery through CloudFront Embedded Points of Presence.
PCI DSSAmazon CloudFront: Listed as PCI DSS-compliant on AWS's own compliance scope page. — Excludes content delivery through CloudFront Embedded Points of Presence.
Encryption at restAmazon 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.
Customer-managed keysAmazon 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.
Role-based access controlAmazon CloudFront: IAM managed policies CloudFrontReadOnlyAccess and CloudFrontFullAccess attach to users, groups and roles, alongside custom identity-based policies.
Private networking / VPCAmazon 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.
Dedicated infrastructureAmazon CloudFront: Dedicated IP custom SSL costs $600/month per certificate; Anycast Static IPs provide a dedicated set of static IP addresses for distributions.
04.

Questions this comparison answers.

Entry paid plan: Amazon CloudFront or KeyCDN?

Amazon CloudFront: Pro plan: $15/month.

KeyCDN: No plan tiers: pay-as-you-go with a $4 per month minimum charge on combined account usage, and credits must be topped up with a minimum $49 payment.

Free tier: Amazon CloudFront or KeyCDN?

Amazon CloudFront: Yes

KeyCDN: No

Egress over allowance: Amazon CloudFront or KeyCDN?

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.

KeyCDN: $0.04/GB for North America and Europe, first 10 TB per month.

Should I choose Amazon CloudFront or KeyCDN?

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 KeyCDN if Low-commitment testing or small sites — no free tier, but the $4/month floor and no-commitment billing make it cheap to try against real traffic.

Provider pages

Amazon CloudFrontAWS's CDN, sold in flat-rate monthly plans bundling CloudFront with other AWS services rather than metered bandwidth alone.KeyCDNPay-as-you-go CDN with no long-term commitment and a metered per-operation image processing add-on.

Related comparisons

Amazon CloudFront vs Azure Front DoorAmazon CloudFront vs Bunny CDNAmazon CloudFront vs CloudflareAmazon CloudFront vs FastlyAzure Front Door vs KeyCDNBunny CDN vs KeyCDNCloudflare vs KeyCDNFastly vs KeyCDN

Comments

Every page here is sourced and dated.