AWS CloudFront vs AWS Global Accelerator: Understanding Their Differences

AWS offers a range of services to optimize application performance, availability, and delivery. Two such services are AWS CloudFront and AWS Global Accelerator. While both of them use AWS's global network infrastructure, they cater to different use cases and application needs.
This blog post discusses the similarities and differences among these two, hence helping you choose the perfect fit for you!

Basic Overview

AWS CloudFront:

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) designed to deliver content, videos, APIs, and applications with low latency through a network of edge locations.

AWS Global Accelerator:

A networking service aimed at improving application availability and performance using AWS's global network and static IP addresses.

Similarities Between CloudFront and Global Accelerator

Both services share several key characteristics:

1. Operate on AWS’s global network infrastructure.
2. Enhance application performance and availability.
3. Provide worldwide edge locations for optimal user experience.
4. Include DDoS protection through AWS Shield.
5. Support health checks for endpoint monitoring.
6. Integrate with Application Load Balancers.
7. Work with both IPv4 and IPv6.

Differences

The table above gives an overview on differences between both the services. Now let's take a deeper dive into the key factors that might effect the selection of service.

Key Use Cases

When to Use AWS CloudFront

1. Delivering static content like images, videos, and HTML files.
2. Accelerating dynamic content delivery for web applications.
3. Streaming video and audio content globally.
4. Distributing software updates.
5. Hosting static websites with edge security features.
6. Accelerating APIs for faster responses.
7. Implementing content personalization at the edge.

When to Use AWS Global Accelerator

1. Supporting gaming applications (UDP traffic).
2. Managing IoT devices with protocols like MQTT.
3. Facilitating Voice over IP (VoIP) communication.
4. Delivering live media streaming.
5. Applications requiring static IPs for consistent routing.
6. Ensuring multi-region failover for high availability.
7. Powering global applications with predictable performance.
8. Supporting both TCP and UDP workloads.

Pricing Comparison

Pricing is a crucial consideration when choosing between CloudFront and Global Accelerator. Here's a high-level comparison of their pricing models:

AWS CloudFront Pricing

1. Data Transfer Out: Charged based on the amount of data delivered from edge locations to users. Costs vary by region.
2. Requests: Charged based on the number of HTTP/HTTPS requests made.
3. Additional Features: Services like real-time logs, origin shield, or custom SSL certificates may incur extra costs.
4. Free Tier: AWS offers 1 TB of data transfer out and 10 million HTTP/HTTPS requests for free in the first year.

AWS Global Accelerator Pricing

1. Accelerator Hours: Billed per hour for each active accelerator.
2. Data Transfer: Charged based on the volume of data transferred through the accelerator, with costs varying by source and destination regions.
3. Static IPs: No additional charge for the static IPs provided.
4. No Free Tier: Unlike CloudFront, there is no free tier for Global Accelerator.

For detailed and up-to-date pricing, visit the AWS CloudFront Pricing and AWS Global Accelerator Pricing pages.

Additional Features

CloudFront

• Origin Shield to reduce origin server load.
• Field-level encryption for secure data transfer.
• Real-time logs for monitoring and analytics.
• Support for custom SSL certificates.
• Cache behaviors to optimize content delivery.
• Query string parameter handling for dynamic content caching.

Global Accelerator

• Client affinity for maintaining consistent sessions.
• Network zone isolation for fault tolerance.
• Traffic dials to control regional traffic distribution.
• Bring Your Own IP (BYOIP) for legacy systems.
• Custom routing for advanced traffic patterns.
• Continuous endpoint monitoring for availability.
• Instant regional failover for disaster recovery.

When to Choose Which Service

Choose AWS CloudFront When You:

• Need content caching to reduce server load.
• Require edge computing capabilities for low-latency operations.
• Want to integrate with AWS Web Application Firewall (WAF).
• Handle HTTP/HTTPS workloads.
• Need URL-based routing for content distribution.

Choose AWS Global Accelerator When You:

• Need static IP addresses for consistent routing.
• Operate applications with TCP/UDP workloads.
• Require fast and reliable regional failover.
• Need client affinity for session persistence.
• Handle non-HTTP/HTTPS applications.

Final Thoughts

Choosing between AWS CloudFront and AWS Global Accelerator ultimately depends on your application's requirements.

• For Content Delivery: If your primary goal is to deliver content such as static files, videos, or API responses to users worldwide with low latency, AWS CloudFront is the ideal choice. It excels in caching, edge computing, and optimizing HTTP/HTTPS workloads while offering robust security features like WAF and Origin Shield.
• For Networking Performance: If your application requires static IPs, predictable routing, or needs to handle protocols like TCP and UDP (common in gaming, IoT, and live streaming), AWS Global Accelerator is the better option. Its ability to provide instant failover and consistent performance across regions makes it a strong candidate for applications needing high availability and reliability.

Using Both: In many cases, these services can complement each other. For example, you could use CloudFront for content delivery along with Global Accelerator for managing non-HTTP workloads or ensuring reliable multi-region failover.

That's it for this blog, drop comments below in case of questions, suggestions or feedbacks. Thank you!

P.S. - Here's a reminder to drink water and stay hydrated!