Re:CloudFront vs CloudFlare
by youngtaff on Sunday December 02, 2012 @06:04AM
(#4860846)
The article is an Apples to Oranges comparison...
CloudFront is a content delivery network, CloudFlare is part content delivery network, part front-end optimisation service.
What CloudFlare do it optimise the content so that it loads faster e.g. by minifying JS/CSS, merging files etc. i.e. many of Steve Souders rules.
There are other services around which do much the same thing Google's PageSpeedService, Strangeloop Networks, Torbit etc.
You could perhaps achieve much the same thing using mod_pagespeed, or Aptimize etc. on your webserver and a CDN in front.
If you chose a CDN that allows you to push your dynamic pages through it e.g. Fastly, then even the HTML delivery can be speeded up in many cases (even if the CDN doesn't cache the HTML, which perhaps it could for many sites)
Real challenge that the article doesn't cover is where do CloudFront, and CloudFlare have slow performance e.g. due to peering arrangements etc. That's where multi-CDN providers (ala TurboBytes) can help
CloudFront is a content delivery network, CloudFlare is part content delivery network, part front-end optimisation service.
What CloudFlare do it optimise the content so that it loads faster e.g. by minifying JS/CSS, merging files etc. i.e. many of Steve Souders rules.
There are other services around which do much the same thing Google's PageSpeedService, Strangeloop Networks, Torbit etc.
You could perhaps achieve much the same thing using mod_pagespeed, or Aptimize etc. on your webserver and a CDN in front.
If you chose a CDN that allows you to push your dynamic pages through it e.g. Fastly, then even the HTML delivery can be speeded up in many cases (even if the CDN doesn't cache the HTML, which perhaps it could for many sites)
Real challenge that the article doesn't cover is where do CloudFront, and CloudFlare have slow performance e.g. due to peering arrangements etc. That's where multi-CDN providers (ala TurboBytes) can help