AWS EC2 vs Cloudflare Workers
A detailed comparison to help you choose between AWS EC2 and Cloudflare Workers.
 AWS EC2 The original cloud — 750+ instance types | Cloudflare Workers Deploy serverless code globally on Cloudflare's edge network | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 4.1 (128 reviews) | 4.6 (437 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | freemium | freemium |
| Starting price | Free tier available | Free tier available |
| Best for | Enterprise teams with AWS expertise who need the broadest instance selection and global availability | Teams building latency-sensitive APIs, middleware, and dynamic content serving that need global distribution without provisioning servers. |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | — | 0 vCPU |
| RAM | — | 0 GB |
| Storage | — | 0 GB |
| Bandwidth | — | 0 TB/mo |
| SLA uptime | — | 99.99% |
| Data-center count | — | 300 |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ✓ | |
| DDoS protection | ✓ | |
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ✓ | |
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | — | 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
- + Largest instance type selection — 750+
- + Spot instances for 90% discount on interruption-tolerant workloads
- + 99 availability zones across 31 regions
Cons
- - Complex pricing — easy to overspend
- - Requires expertise to use efficiently
Cloudflare Workers
Pros
- + Execute code in sub-50ms globally across Cloudflare's network
- + Eliminate cold starts with always-hot edge execution
- + Integrate directly with Cloudflare's DDoS protection and caching
- + Support multiple languages including JavaScript, Python, and Rust
- + Scale automatically without managing infrastructure
Cons
- - CPU time limits (10ms free tier) restrict computation-heavy workloads
- - Learning curve for developers unfamiliar with edge computing paradigms
- - Vendor lock-in with proprietary APIs like Durable Objects
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