# Amazon CloudFront vs Fastly: which do AI models recommend for CDN, October 2026

IT AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition, Content delivery networks. One of fourteen models named Amazon CloudFront first on the direct prompt; zero named Fastly. Page: https://it-ai-index.com/network/content-delivery-networks/amazon-cloudfront-vs-fastly/

| | First-choice share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels | Models naming it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon CloudFront | 5% | #4 of 8 | 22% | 68 | 14 of 14 |
| Fastly | 4% | #5 of 8 | 20% | 61 | 14 of 14 |

## The direct prompt, model by model

- Claude Haiku 4.5: amazon cloudfront first (first choices: Amazon CloudFront, CDN77) (alternatives: Azure CDN, Cloudflare, Gcore)
- GPT-5.4 mini: neither first, one named (first choices: Cloudflare) (alternatives: Amazon CloudFront, Fastly)
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: neither first, one named (first choices: Cloudflare) (alternatives: Bunny.net, Fastly)
- Perplexity Sonar: neither first, one named (first choices: Cloudflare) (alternatives: Akamai, Amazon CloudFront)
- Grok 4.1 Fast: neither first, one named (first choices: Cloudflare) (alternatives: Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.net, KeyCDN)
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: neither first, one named (first choices: Cloudflare) (alternatives: Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.net)
- Kimi K2: neither first, one named (first choices: Cloudflare) (alternatives: Bunny.net, Fastly, KeyCDN)
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: neither first, one named (first choices: Cloudflare) (alternatives: Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.net, Fastly)
- MiniMax M2.5: neither first, one named (first choices: Bunny.net, KeyCDN) (alternatives: Amazon CloudFront, Cloudflare)
- GPT-6 Luna: neither first, one named (first choices: Cloudflare) (alternatives: Amazon CloudFront, Fastly)
- Muse Glimmer 30B: neither first, one named (first choices: Cloudflare) (alternatives: Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.net, Fastly, KeyCDN)
- Mistral Small: neither named (first choices: Bunny.net, KeyCDN)
- Llama 4 Maverick: neither named (first choices: Bunny.net, KeyCDN) (alternatives: BlazingCDN)
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: neither named (first choices: KeyCDN) (alternatives: BlazingCDN, Bunny.net, Cloudflare)

## What the models said about Amazon CloudFront

- "It's best to avoid unless you have strict cost controls and predictable traffic patterns." (Mistral Small, negative prompt, hard negative)
- "At 500 TB a month, Amazon CloudFront's North America list pricing works out to roughly $24,600 before request fees... The same bytes on a volume-tier CDN cost between $1,500 and $2,500." (Muse Glimmer 30B, scale prompt, soft negative)
- "Lambda@Edge is generally slower and more expensive to execute than Cloudflare Workers or Fastly's Compute@Edge, and AWS data transfer pricing can become complex and costly at scale" (Claude Haiku 4.5, comparative prompt, soft negative)
- "1. Amazon CloudFront - Best for companies already using AWS... If you're on AWS, go with CloudFront." (Mistral Small, paraphrase prompt, first choice)
- "For mid-market B2B specifically, CDN77 and CloudFront emerge as particularly well-suited options" (Claude Haiku 4.5, direct prompt, first choice)
- "I'd recommend evaluating Cloudflare, Fastly, Akamai, and CloudFront first" (GLM 4.7 FlashX, scale prompt, first choice)

## What the models said about Fastly

- "Avoid enterprise ones (Akamai, Fastly) as they're pricier." (Grok 4.1 Fast, budget prompt, hard negative)
- "Fastly’s VCL‑based cache logic is powerful but can be brittle; mis‑configuration can lead to cache‑invalidation issues or performance regressions." (GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt, soft negative)
- "good option for development-heavy teams ... but it is more specialized than Cloudflare for a broad mid-market B2B use case" (Perplexity Sonar, direct prompt, soft negative)
- "Fastly: *The "Developer-First" Choice.* Best-in-class real-time purging ... Ideal if your engineering team wants complete programmatic control." (Gemini 3.5 Flash, scale prompt, first choice)
- "I'd recommend evaluating Cloudflare, Fastly, Akamai, and CloudFront first" (GLM 4.7 FlashX, scale prompt, first choice)
- "Fastly if your site or app needs very fast purging, high configurability, real-time control, or developer-heavy workflows" (GPT-5.4 mini, paraphrase prompt, alternative)

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category. Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category. Published under CC BY 4.0; the output is the models' output, and nothing here is a recommendation by the index.