AWS EC2 vs Cloudflare Workers
A detailed comparison to help you choose between AWS EC2 and Cloudflare Workers.
Quick Verdict
3.9/5
AWS EC2
0 reviews
4.3/5
Cloudflare Workers
0 reviews
Cloudflare Workers is rated higher (4.3 vs 3.9). 124 Availability Zones in 39 geographic regions Run JavaScript, Python, and Rust functions at the edge with sub-millisecond latency. Ideal for APIs, middleware, and full-stack applications needing global distribution.
 AWS EC2 The original cloud — 750+ instance types | Cloudflare Workers Deploy serverless code globally on Cloudflare's edge network | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.9 (0 reviews) | 4.3 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | usage-based (per-second On-Demand, Spot, Savings Plans; free tier credits for new accounts) | freemium |
| Starting price | From $0.0042/mo | Free tier available✓ |
| Best for | Teams with AWS expertise needing the broadest instance selection, global regions, GPU/bare metal options, and commitment-based discounts for steady production workloads | Latency-sensitive APIs, middleware, edge rendering and full-stack applications that want global deployment with no infrastructure to run — especially teams already using Cloudflare's storage and CDN products. |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | — | 10 vCPU |
| RAM | 0.5 GB | — |
| Storage | — | 1 GB |
| Bandwidth | — | — |
| SLA uptime | 99.99% | 100%✓ |
| Data-center count | — | 330 |
| €/vCPU/mo | — | €0.00 |
| €/GB RAM/mo | €0.01 | — |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ||
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ✓ | |
| Free tier | ||
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | 39 AWS regions / 124 AZs plus Local Zones and Wavelength | Global — 300+ cities |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tierhourly billingipv6ddos protectionbackups includedmanaged optionbare metalgpu availables3 compatibleeu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenterapi accessterraform providerkubernetes support | free tierddos protectionipv6eu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenterapi accessopen source |
| Visit AWS EC2 → | Visit Cloudflare Workers → | |
AWS EC2
Pros
- + Widest hardware catalog in the market — 1,000+ instance types including Arm, bare metal and GPU families
- + Per-second billing with real cost levers: Spot up to 90% off, Savings Plans up to 72% off
- + 99.99% region-level SLA across 124 AZs in 39 regions with explicit service credits
- + Mature ecosystem: AMIs, Marketplace, Terraform, Systems Manager, and deep service integration
Cons
- - Total cost is a system of meters — EBS, snapshots, elastic IPv4, data transfer and add-ons dwarf the instance price
- - Requires real AWS expertise: VPC design, security groups, IAM and patching are all self-managed
- - Single-instance SLA is only 99.5%; the 99.99% commitment requires multi-AZ architecture
- - Data transfer out is expensive enough to shape architecture decisions
Cloudflare Workers
Pros
- + No cold starts: V8 isolates start in microseconds at 330+ locations
- + CPU-time billing with a genuinely usable free tier (100k requests/day)
- + No egress or bandwidth charges on any plan
- + Storage stack (KV, D1, Durable Objects, R2) binds declaratively and stays in-network
- + Strong docs: pricing and limits pages are explicit and example-driven
Cons
- - CPU time caps exclude compute-heavy and long-running workloads
- - Real vendor lock-in through Durable Objects, bindings and deployment model
- - KV writes ($5.00/M) and Durable Objects duration billing surprise stateful designs
- - Conceptual shift for teams used to container-based serverless
- - No uptime SLA below the Business plan
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