Picking a CDN is one of those decisions people wave off with “any of them is fine”, when in fact the choice moves both performance and bill. Over the last three years I’ve run Cloudflare, BunnyCDN, and Fastly on separate projects. Here’s a consolidated take.
Cloudflare
The most popular option, a generous free tier, a great starting point.
Upsides:
– Free tier is very generous. DNS, SSL, DDoS protection, basic CDN included.
– Huge network, 300+ POPs. Close to users almost anywhere.
– Workers + Pages for edge compute.
– R2 (S3 alternative, free egress) rounds out a solid ecosystem.
– Rich analytics dashboard.
– Basic bot management and WAF on the free tier.
Downsides:
– Cache behaviour on the free tier is limited. Image optimisation starts at Pro.
– Tiered pricing. Enterprise gets expensive.
– In edge cases (video streaming, heavy transfer) Enterprise egress bills can surprise you.
– Cache rule flexibility often requires Pro or above.
– Traffic for regional POPs can route via a different region on lower plans; route optimisation sits behind a paid tier.
For simple WordPress or e-commerce sites, Cloudflare’s free tier is fantastic. New brand, tight budget, DNS + SSL + DDoS in one box. Easy pick.
BunnyCDN
Less famous but a solid alternative. Has POPs in regions others skip.
Upsides:
– Pricing is very competitive. $0.01 to $0.06 per GB by region.
– Regional POPs give you an edge on local latency.
– Built-in image processing (optimise, resize, format convert).
– Bunny Fonts (a GDPR-compliant Google Fonts alternative).
– Bunny Stream for video.
– Setup is painless and the dashboard is clean.
– Pull zone or storage zone, you just toggle.
Downsides:
– Smaller network (around 100 POPs, fewer than Cloudflare).
– No real edge compute yet (improving but limited).
– Basic DDoS protection, you need another layer for anything serious.
– Smaller community, less troubleshooting material than Cloudflare.
For image-heavy e-commerce, BunnyCDN shines. On one client’s 2TB/month transfer, Cloudflare Pro ran $40 and BunnyCDN ran $24 for the same thing. No performance difference.
Fastly
Enterprise-focused, performance-obsessed, developer-friendly.
Upsides:
– Cache invalidation is sub-second. One instant-purge API, clean cache under 200ms globally.
– Edge side includes and VCL (Varnish Configuration Language) let you customise deeply.
– Real-time log streaming. You watch requests as they happen.
– Strong image optimiser.
– Compute@Edge with Rust or AssemblyScript for edge functions.
– Real-time analytics down to the millisecond.
Downsides:
– Expensive. Starts at $50/month and climbs into the thousands on a large site.
– Setup is complex. Without learning VCL you can’t do advanced customisation.
– The dashboard feels dated.
– No free tier, trial only.
Fastly fits news sites, large e-commerce, and media publishing. Notable customers: The New York Times, Shopify, GitHub. On a small site it’s over-engineering.
Comparison table
| Criterion | Cloudflare | BunnyCDN | Fastly |
| — | — | — | — |
| Free tier | Generous | None (trial) | None (trial) |
| Pricing | Low to mid | Very low | High |
| POP count | 300+ | 100+ | 90+ |
| Regional POP coverage | Wide | Wide | Narrower |
| Image optimisation | Paid | Free | Paid |
| Edge compute | Workers | Limited | Compute@Edge |
| DDoS protection | Included | Extra | Included |
| Invalidation speed | Fast | Middle | Instant |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy | Middle |
Real project experiences
Project 1: Small blog, 10k monthly visitors. Cloudflare free tier. Zero cost, plenty fast.
Project 2: E-commerce, 300k monthly visitors, image-heavy. Started on Cloudflare; egress plus Pro was $80/month. Moved to BunnyCDN and dropped to $35. Image optimisation built in, no extra plugin needed.
Project 3: A news portal where instant updates matter. Used Fastly. The moment content is updated, readers worldwide see it. Instant purge was the deciding feature.
Project 4: Video platform. Cloudflare Stream vs Bunny Stream. Bunny Stream was cheaper, Cloudflare Stream more integrated into its ecosystem. Budget won; we picked Bunny.
Regional latency note
For users in a specific country, POP location matters. Cloudflare and BunnyCDN have regional POPs with 10 to 20ms latency. Fastly doesn’t have one in every region and traffic routes via Frankfurt, 40 to 60ms.
SSL and DNS decision
One of Cloudflare’s biggest trump cards is the DNS + SSL + CDN bundle. If you use another provider, keeping DNS at Cloudflare and CDN elsewhere is a common split. I run BunnyCDN on some sites with DNS still on Cloudflare.
Decision matrix
- Free tier needed + simple site: Cloudflare.
- Image or video heavy + tight budget: BunnyCDN.
- Large scale + instant invalidation + dev UX: Fastly.
- Heavy regional traffic: Cloudflare or BunnyCDN.
- Edge compute: Cloudflare Workers (hobby or mid) or Fastly Compute@Edge (enterprise).
- Mid-size e-commerce: BunnyCDN for image optimisation.
Using two CDNs together is also a thing. DNS + DDoS on Cloudflare, asset delivery on BunnyCDN. Sometimes the best architecture is a mix of components.
In the end, the CDN pick is about your project. There’s no single right answer. Measure your own traffic pattern and decide from there.