CDN Provider Comparison & Cost Calculator
Compare Cloudflare, Fastly, AWS CloudFront, Bunny.net, and KeyCDN by PoP infrastructure, HTTP/3 support, edge compute, and bandwidth costs.
Monthly Bandwidth Cost Estimator
Estimated Monthly Cost & Architectural Breakdown
Cloudflare
Free / Pro ($20/mo)WordPress sites, blogs, and cost-efficient edge caching
Free / Included
Rate: $0.000 / GB330+ Locations
Enabled ✓
Cloudflare Workers (V8 V8 Isolate)
Unmetered L3/L4/L7 DDoS
Bunny.net
Volume / StandardVideo streaming, media delivery, and affordable origin offload
$10 / mo
Rate: $0.010 / GB120+ Locations
Enabled ✓
Bunny Edge Scripting
Anycast DDoS Shield
AWS CloudFront
Pay-As-You-GoEnterprises deeply integrated with AWS S3 & EC2 architectures
$85 / mo
Rate: $0.085 / GB600+ Locations
Enabled ✓
CloudFront Functions & Lambda@Edge
AWS Shield Standard / Advanced
Fastly
Pay-As-You-Go ($50 min)Real-time programmatic cache invalidation & dynamic edge API logic
$120 / mo
Rate: $0.120 / GB100+ Locations
Enabled ✓
Compute@Edge (Rust / Wasm)
Next-Gen WAF / Signal Sciences
KeyCDN
Prepaid Pay-As-You-GoSimple static asset offloading with low minimum fees
$40 / mo
Rate: $0.040 / GB40+ Locations
Enabled ✓
None (Pure Static Cache)
Origin Shield & Basic DDoS
Technical Deep-Dive: Choosing a CDN for WordPress
📌 On this page
1. Why CDNs matter more for WordPress than static sites
WordPress generates HTML dynamically on every request by default — PHP queries MySQL, assembles the page, and returns it, a process that typically takes 200-800ms depending on hosting and plugin load. A CDN with full-page caching intercepts that request at the edge and serves a pre-rendered copy in single-digit-to-low-double-digit milliseconds instead, completely bypassing PHP and the database for cached page views. For visitors located far from your origin server, this difference compounds with network latency, making a well-configured CDN one of the highest-leverage performance investments available to a WordPress site.
2. Anycast vs DNS-based routing
Anycast routing advertises the same IP address from every PoP simultaneously, and internet routing infrastructure (BGP) automatically sends each visitor's request to the topologically nearest PoP — this is fast, resilient to individual PoP outages, and doesn't depend on DNS resolver behavior. DNS-based geo-routing instead returns different IP addresses depending on where it thinks the requesting DNS resolver is located, which can misroute visitors when they use a DNS resolver (like a VPN or a public resolver such as 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8) located far from their actual physical location. Most major CDNs today use Anycast for exactly this reason.
3. HTTP/3 and QUIC: why the transport protocol matters
HTTP/3 runs over QUIC (built on UDP) instead of TCP, which eliminates head-of-line blocking at the transport layer — a single lost packet no longer stalls every other in-flight request on the connection, as it can under HTTP/2 over TCP. QUIC also folds the TLS handshake into the initial connection setup, cutting the round trips needed before the first byte of data can be sent, which matters most for visitors on higher-latency mobile networks. All major CDNs now support HTTP/3, but actual benefit depends on the visitor's browser and network path supporting it too.
4. Cache purge latency and why it matters for content sites
Purge latency is how long it takes for a cache-invalidation request to propagate across every edge PoP after you publish or update content. For a static reference site this barely matters, but for a frequently updated blog, news site, or WooCommerce store with live inventory/pricing, a slow global purge (multiple seconds, in the worst cases) means some visitors can briefly see stale content after a publish. Providers offering sub-200ms purge propagation (often via dedicated cache-tag or surrogate-key systems) are meaningfully better suited to high-update-frequency sites.
5. Bandwidth pricing models compared
CDN pricing generally falls into three models: unmetered flat-rate (a fixed monthly fee regardless of traffic, common on generous free/pro consumer tiers), pay-as-you-go per-GB (billed on actual egress bandwidth, common for AWS/Fastly-style enterprise CDNs), and prepaid volume-committed (bulk-purchased bandwidth at a discounted rate). Per-GB pricing also frequently varies by region — traffic to Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and Africa is usually priced meaningfully higher than North America/Europe due to more expensive transit routes, so a site with a global audience should model its regional traffic mix, not just total volume, when comparing providers.
6. A practical decision framework
For most WordPress sites and blogs, a free or low-cost unmetered-bandwidth CDN with solid PoP coverage and built-in DDoS protection is the pragmatic default — it removes the biggest performance and cost risks without ongoing per-GB billing anxiety. For high-traffic media/video sites, a provider optimized for large-object delivery with competitive per-GB rates becomes more cost-effective. For teams building custom edge logic (redirects, A/B tests, personalization), the quality and language support of the edge-compute platform should weigh as heavily as raw pricing. Match the choice to your actual traffic profile and technical requirements, not just the lowest advertised number.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does a Content Delivery Network (CDN) accelerate WordPress sites?
A CDN caches static assets (images, CSS, JS, fonts) and dynamic HTML across hundreds of edge Points of Presence (PoPs) globally. Visitors download content from their closest geographic server, drastically reducing Round Trip Time (RTT) and origin server load.
What is the advantage of Full-Page Edge Caching vs Static Asset CDN?
Standard CDNs only cache media and scripts. Full-page edge caching (e.g. Cloudflare Enterprise or Fastly) caches the initial HTML document at the edge, reducing origin Time to First Byte (TTFB) from ~600ms down to ~40ms globally for cached pages.
Why do bandwidth costs differ between North America and Asia/Latin America?
Transit and IP transit peering costs are significantly higher in regions like Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and Africa due to fewer subsea cables and less deregulated telecom competition.
What are Edge Compute / Workers in modern CDNs?
Edge compute allows running serverless code (such as V8 JavaScript isolates or WebAssembly) directly on edge servers before requests reach the origin. This enables instant redirects, A/B testing, header modification, and geolocation routing without PHP server overhead.
Are the prices and PoP counts on this page pulled live from each provider?
No. This tool is a manually curated reference comparison based on publicly documented pricing tiers and infrastructure figures as of 2026, not a live API integration with any CDN provider. Providers frequently adjust list pricing, add PoPs, and change free-tier terms — always confirm current numbers directly on the provider's official pricing page before making a purchasing decision, especially for volume/enterprise agreements which are frequently negotiated below list price.
Is a higher PoP (Points of Presence) count always better?
Not necessarily. PoP count is a reasonable proxy for global reach, but what actually determines end-user latency is whether a CDN has a PoP genuinely close to your specific visitor base, how well-peered that PoP is with local ISPs, and whether the CDN uses true Anycast routing versus DNS-based geo-routing. A CDN with 100 well-placed, well-peered PoPs can outperform one claiming 600 PoPs with weaker regional connectivity in your specific traffic markets.
Do I need edge compute (Workers/Functions) for a typical WordPress site?
Most WordPress sites do not strictly need edge compute — full-page caching, image optimization, and standard DDoS protection cover the majority of performance and security needs. Edge compute becomes valuable for specific use cases like running A/B tests without a client-side flicker, geo-based redirects, custom header/redirect logic that would otherwise require a PHP request to origin, or building bespoke API logic that runs closer to the visitor than your WordPress server.
How does this calculator estimate my monthly CDN bandwidth cost?
It multiplies your selected monthly egress traffic (in GB) by each provider's publicly listed per-GB rate for your selected traffic region. This is a straightforward, transparent linear calculation — it does not account for tiered volume discounts, minimum monthly commitments, request-count-based fees, or negotiated enterprise pricing, all of which can meaningfully change your real invoice at scale.