Best CDN Providers 2026: Content Delivery Networks Compared
We rank content delivery networks (CDNs) for websites and apps using only facts from the providers' own sites: the pay-as-you-go price per GB for traffic to North America and Europe at the lowest tier, whether there is a permanent free plan, how many points of presence (PoPs) the provider names, HTTP/3, IPv6, image optimisation, DDoS protection, a web application firewall (WAF), free TLS certificates, edge compute, real-time logs, instant cache purge, the published uptime SLA, SOC 2 or ISO 27001, a public status page and the year the company started. Every fact links to an official page with a check date. We do not run our own speed tests and do not use reviews or user scores, and paid placements never change the Score.
| # | Company | Who it serves | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cloudflare CDN | 77 | Not verified | Yes | 348 | Yes | Yes | 100% | Free Images DDoS WAF Edge code |
| 2 | bunny.net CDN | 71 | $0.01 | No | 119 | Yes | Yes | 99.99% | Images DDoS WAF Edge code |
| 3 | Amazon CloudFront | 68 | $0.085 | Yes | 750 | Yes | Yes | Not verified | Free DDoS WAF Edge code |
| 4 | Fastly | 59 | $0.12 | Yes | Not verified | Yes | Yes | Not verified | Free Images DDoS WAF Edge code |
| 5 | KeyCDN | 58 | $0.04 | No | 60 | Yes | Not verified | 99.99% | Images DDoS |
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- Price per GB, North America and Europe, lowest tier
- Not verified
- Free plan or free monthly traffic
- Yes
- Points of presence (provider's count)
- 348
- DDoS protection
- Yes
- Web application firewall (WAF)
- Yes
- Uptime SLA
- 100%
Pros
- Large network of PoPs
- Has a permanent free plan or free monthly traffic
- DDoS protection
- Web application firewall
Details Visit site ↗ 78% backed by facts
-
- Price per GB, North America and Europe, lowest tier
- $0.01
- Free plan or free monthly traffic
- No
- Points of presence (provider's count)
- 119
- DDoS protection
- Yes
- Web application firewall (WAF)
- Yes
- Uptime SLA
- 99.99%
Pros
- Low price per GB
- DDoS protection
- Web application firewall
- Free TLS certificates
Cons
- No permanent free plan
Details Visit site ↗ 86% backed by facts
-
- Price per GB, North America and Europe, lowest tier
- $0.085
- Free plan or free monthly traffic
- Yes
- Points of presence (provider's count)
- 750
- DDoS protection
- Yes
- Web application firewall (WAF)
- Yes
- Uptime SLA
- Not verified
Pros
- Large network of PoPs
- Has a permanent free plan or free monthly traffic
- DDoS protection
- Web application firewall
Cons
- High price per GB
Details Visit site ↗ 81% backed by facts
-
- Price per GB, North America and Europe, lowest tier
- $0.12
- Free plan or free monthly traffic
- Yes
- Points of presence (provider's count)
- Not verified
- DDoS protection
- Yes
- Web application firewall (WAF)
- Yes
- Uptime SLA
- Not verified
Pros
- Has a permanent free plan or free monthly traffic
- DDoS protection
- Web application firewall
- Free TLS certificates
Cons
- High price per GB
Details Visit site ↗ 74% backed by facts
-
- Price per GB, North America and Europe, lowest tier
- $0.04
- Free plan or free monthly traffic
- No
- Points of presence (provider's count)
- 60
- DDoS protection
- Yes
- Web application firewall (WAF)
- Not verified
- Uptime SLA
- 99.99%
Pros
- DDoS protection
- Free TLS certificates
- High published uptime SLA
- Real-time request logs
Cons
- No permanent free plan
Details Visit site ↗ 78% backed by facts
Not ranked yet: not enough verified data
These services are known to us, but we haven't verified enough facts to rank them fairly.
- Akamai (site closed to automated checks, )
- Azion (58% backed by facts)
- CDN77 (25% backed by facts)
- CDNsun (37% backed by facts)
- CacheFly (53% backed by facts)
- Gcore CDN (68% backed by facts)
- Google Cloud CDN (33% backed by facts)
- Medianova (33% backed by facts)
- QUIC.cloud (65% backed by facts)
- Tencent EdgeOne (60% backed by facts)
Sites marked as closed refuse automated reading (403 error, captcha or a robots.txt ban). We don't bypass such protection, so we can't verify their facts and they are not ranked. This says nothing about their quality. A company can send links to its official pages to [email protected].
How we calculate the Score
25%
Price
The pay-as-you-go price per GB of delivered traffic in North America and Europe at the lowest volume tier, as written on the official pricing page: $0 scores 100, $0.10 or more scores 0 (weight 3). We take only a per-GB price that is printed on the page: plan bundles, per-TB overages and commit deals are not converted, and a price shown only by a script or in a currency chosen by our visitor location stays empty. Providers that sell flat-rate plans with unmetered traffic have no per-GB price, so this fact stays empty for them. Also a permanent free plan or free monthly traffic allowance (weight 2); a trial or one-time credit does not count.
25%
Network and performance
The number of points of presence, edge nodes or data centre cities the provider names, on a logarithmic scale up to 500 (weight 3); providers count PoPs differently, so treat the number as their own claim. Also HTTP/3 (weight 1), delivery over IPv6 (weight 1) and built-in image optimisation such as resizing or WebP/AVIF conversion (weight 1).
20%
Security
DDoS protection for sites behind the CDN (weight 2), a web application firewall or managed WAF rules (weight 2) and free TLS certificates for your domains (weight 2). A fact shows that the provider offers the feature; on some providers it is part of a paid plan or add-on.
15%
Developer control
Edge compute, meaning your own code running on the CDN's servers (weight 1), real-time access to request logs or log streaming (weight 1) and cache purge that the provider describes as instant or completed within seconds (weight 1).
15%
Reliability and trust
The uptime percentage in the provider's published SLA, on a straight line from 99% (0 points) to 100% (100 points) (weight 2); an independent SOC 2 audit or ISO 27001 certification (weight 1); a public status page (weight 1); and how long the company has been running: 20 years or more scores 100 (weight 1).
How to choose a CDN provider
Estimate your traffic and where it goes
Look at last month's bandwidth and the countries your visitors come from. Per-GB prices differ a lot between regions, and traffic to Asia, South America or Africa often costs several times more than to North America and Europe.
Compare the whole bill, not one price
Besides the price per GB, check request fees, monthly minimums, paid add-ons such as WAF or image optimisation, and what happens when you exceed a flat-rate plan. A free plan is ideal for small sites, but read its limits before relying on it.
Check security and certificates
A CDN sits in front of your site, so DDoS protection, a web application firewall and free automatic TLS certificates save you from buying and managing them separately. Check which of these come with the plan you choose.
Think about control and reliability
Instant cache purge and real-time logs matter when you deploy often or debug problems. Edge compute lets you move small pieces of logic to the edge. For a business site, read the uptime SLA and whether there is a public status page.
Frequently asked questions
Which CDN provider is best?
The provider in first place has the highest Score under our open method, but the Score does not measure real-world speed in your visitors' countries. Decide where your audience is, how much traffic you serve and which security features you need, then test one or two providers on a real page before moving the whole site.
How do you compare CDN prices?
We take the pay-as-you-go price per GB for North America and Europe at the lowest volume tier, exactly as printed on the provider's official pricing page. We do not calculate a price from plan bundles, per-TB overages or monthly minimums, and we do not convert a price that the site showed in a local currency because of our visitor location. The note on each provider's page lists other prices we saw, such as monthly minimums and higher-volume tiers.
Why is the price empty for Cloudflare and some other providers?
Some providers sell flat-rate plans with unmetered or bundled traffic, so there is no per-GB price to compare; others give prices only on request or per TB in a commit. We record only what is printed on the official page and do not guess, so the fact stays empty and lowers data completeness. That is why some well-known providers rank lower or are listed outside the ranking.
Why is Akamai not in the ranking?
Akamai's website refused our crawler (HTTP 403) when we checked it. We do not bypass protection, so we have no facts for Akamai and list it outside the ranking with a note.
Do you test CDN speed ourselves?
No. CDN speed depends on your visitors' locations, networks, cache hit ratio and settings, and a fair test is hard to repeat. We use only facts that anyone can check on the provider's own pages, each with a link and a check date.