Networking And Content Delivery — professional stack.
For each requirement below, pick the option that fits your build — recommended first, then free and cheaper alternatives — or skip what your project doesn't need. Tap the info icon next to any requirement to see why it matters.
Virtual Network / VPC
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsAWS VPC: $0/mo for VPC/subnets/route tables. Paid add-ons: NAT Gateway $0.045/hr (~$32.85/mo) + $0.045/GB processed. VPC Peering $0.01/GB intra-region, $0.02/GB cross-region. GCP VPC: $0/mo, egress $0.12/GB internet, $0.01/GB intra-zone peering. Azure VNet: $0/mo, peering $0.01/GB. Free Tier: VPC/VNet itself unlimited free; NAT not free. Self-host vSwitch/Headscale $0.
DNS Hosting (Authoritative)
Your human-readable address on the web plus the DNS records that point it at your servers. Skipping this is not an option — users need a domain to reach you.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Free: Unlimited zones & queries, unlimited records, 20 Page Rules free, Pro $20/mo (20 rules, WAF), Business $200/mo (100 rules, 100% uptime SLA), Enterprise $5000/mo+. Route53: $0.50/zone/mo first 25, $0.40/M queries first 1B, $0.20/M after + $0.50/healthcheck. Bunny DNS: $0.10/zone/mo min $1/mo, $0.20/M queries, 20 global PoPs. Free Tier: Cloudflare unlimited free forever. Route53 no free tier beyond 12mo trial.
CDN / Edge Delivery
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Free: Unlimited BW, 330+ PoPs, Tiered Cache free. Pro $20/mo, Business $200/mo, Enterprise $5000/mo+. BunnyCDN: $1/mo min (storage), Volume tier $0.01/GB NA/EU, $0.03/GB APAC/SA, $0.01/GB extra Tier. Fastly: $50/mo min, $0.12/GB NA/EU first 10TB, $0.19/GB APAC, $0.015/10k requests. CloudFront: $0.085/GB first 10TB, $0.02/10k HTTPS req, $0.02/GB origin fetch. Free Tier: Cloudflare unlimited. CloudFront 1TB free/mo 12 mo, 10M requests. Overage: per GB/requests billed.
HTTPS / TLS Certificate Management
Encrypts traffic between your users and your servers. Without it browsers flag your site as insecure and you lose trust and search ranking.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Universal: Free unlimited certs with auto-renew, shared SAN. Pro $20/mo same. Business $200/mo custom upload. ACM Public: $0 free when attached to ALB/CloudFront/NLB/ApiGW. ACM Private CA: $400/mo per CA + $0.75/private cert, $0.10 for short-lived. Let's Encrypt: $0 free, 50 certs/domain/week limit, 90-day. ZeroSSL Free: 3 x 90-day free then $10/mo. Overage: Private CA billing hourly $0.55/hr.
Load Balancer (L7 Application)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare LB Free: 1 LB included with health checks, $5/mo per extra LB, $0.50/M DNS queries for LB. Pro $20/mo same. ALB: $0.0225/hr (~$16.43/mo) + $0.008/LCU-hr (LCU = new conn/sec, active conn, proc bytes, rule evals). GCP L7 LB: $0.025/hr (~$18.25/mo) + $0.008/LCU-hr + $0.008/GB processed. Hetzner LB11: $5.83/mo flat incl 20TB traffic, LB21 $11.66/mo, LB31 $23.33/mo. Free Tier: Cloudflare 1 LB free forever.
DDoS Protection (Network & L7)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Free: Unmetered DDoS mitigation L3/L4/L7 free, no cap. Pro $20/mo enhanced rules. Business $200/mo advanced analytics. Enterprise $5000/mo+ 100% uptime + 5 sec mitigation SLA. AWS Shield Standard free. Shield Advanced $3000/mo/org + $0.05/GB mitigated + AWS DRT. Fastly DDoS included $50/mo min. Bunny Perma-mitigation included free. Free Tier: Cloudflare unmetered free perpetual, best free DDoS on market.
Edge Compute / Workers Runtime
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsWorkers Free: 100k req/day, 10ms CPU, 128MB, 6* subrequests. Workers Paid $5/mo incl 10M req/mo ($0.50/M after), 30M CPU ms included + $0.02/M ms after, Workers KV extra. Workers Unbound: $5/mo same but 30 sec CPU. Fastly Compute: Free trial $50 credit, then $0.12/GB egress + $0.000015/req ($1.50/M). Lambda@Edge: $0.60/M requests + $0.00000625/GB-sec (128MB = $0.000050/100ms) + $0.085/GB egress. Free Tier: Workers Free forever 100k/day.
Mesh VPN / Private Overlay Network
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsTailscale Free: 100 devices, 3 users, 1 tailnet, unlimited traffic, MagicDNS, subnet routers. Personal Pro $6/mo 1 user 100 dev. Team $6/user/mo min 5 users. Business $18/user/mo (6mo audit logs, ACLs). Enterprise custom. ZeroTier Free 25 nodes free, $5/mo per extra 25, $15/mo Business. Netbird Cloud Free 100 peers 10 users. Netmaker Community self-host free. Overage: Device count hard limit free tier.
DNS Firewall / DNS Filtering
Your human-readable address on the web plus the DNS records that point it at your servers. Skipping this is not an option — users need a domain to reach you.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Gateway Free: 50 users free, unlimited DNS queries, L7 filtering, category blocks, 24h log retention. Zero Trust Teams $7/user/mo seat min $7/mo includes 50GB Gateway logs, 30 days. Enterprise $ custom. NextDNS Free 300k queries/mo then $1.99/mo unlimited devices & unlimited queries + logs. Cisco Umbrella DNS $15/user/mo. Free Tier: Cloudflare 50 users free perpetual, best free DNS filtering.
Object Storage Edge / Static Asset Acceleration
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsR2 Free: 10GB storage, 10M Class A ops (write), 10M Class B (read), zero egress fees (free BW to internet). Paid $0.015/GB/mo storage, $4.50/M Class A writes, $0.36/M Class B reads. Bunny Storage Edge SSD $0.02/GB/mo, HDD $0.01/GB/mo, $0.01/GB egress min $1/mo. S3 Standard: $0.023/GB/mo first 50TB, $0.09/GB egress first 10TB, $0.0004/1000 GET. Free Tier: R2 10GB forever free, Cloudflare cache unlimited egress free.
Monitoring - Network / CDN Analytics
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Free Analytics: 30-day retention, unlimited domains, Web Vitals, cache analytics, firewall events. GraphQL logs 7 days free. Grafana Cloud Free: 10k metrics series, 50GB logs/mo, 50GB traces, 3 users. Better Stack Free: 10 monitors 3-min checks, 100 status pages. Datadog NPM: $5/host/mo + $0.10/GB logs ingested. ThousandEyes $250/mo min. Free Tier: Cloudflare analytics free unlimited domains forever.
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
Controls and protects your APIs — quotas, abuse prevention, and firewalls. Important once you have real traffic or many clients.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Free: 5 custom rules free, Managed OWASP limited (Free). Pro $20/mo 20 rules + Managed ruleset full + OWASP Core. Business $200/mo 100 custom + 25 managed rulesets. AWS WAF: $5/mo per WebACL + $1/mo per rule (up to 1500 WCUs) + $0.60/M requests processed (up to $6/M after). Fastly WAF $0.12/GB + $0.015/10k + managed rules $0.50/M. Free Tier: Cloudflare WAF 5 rules free forever. AWS no free tier.
Global Anycast Network / Edge PoPs
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Free: 330+ global PoPs, anycast edge, unlimited anycast queries & bandwidth (same PoPs as Enterprise). Pro $20 same network. Fastly: 90+ PoPs, $50/mo min, $0.12/GB. Akamai Ion: $350/mo min $0.25/GB under 1TB, $0.125/GB after, Enterprise $2500/mo min. BunnyCDN: 115+ PoPs, $1/mo + $0.01/GB (EU/NA). Free Tier: Cloudflare unlimited anycast free forever.
DNS Load Balancing / Failover
Your human-readable address on the web plus the DNS records that point it at your servers. Skipping this is not an option — users need a domain to reach you.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare LB Free: 1 LB, geo/failover/weighted, 2 origins free, health checks 1-min interval, $5/mo per extra LB + $0.50/M LB queries + $1/check/mo. Route53 Failover: $0.50/zone + $0.40/M queries + $0.50/basic health check/mo ($0.75/faster 10s). NS1: $50/mo starter 1M queries + $75/mo traffic steering LB, $0.85/M after. Bunny: $1/mo per LB. Free Tier: Cloudflare 1 LB forever free.
Private DNS Zones / Split-Horizon DNS
Your human-readable address on the web plus the DNS records that point it at your servers. Skipping this is not an option — users need a domain to reach you.Pricing & free-tier limitsTailscale MagicDNS: Free unlimited private DNS within tailnet 100 dev, split DNS, search domains. Route53 Private: $0.50/zone/mo + $0.40/M queries standard (same as public). Azure Private DNS: $0.50/zone/mo + $0.40/M queries. GCP Cloud DNS private: $0.50/zone/mo + $0.40/M. Cloudflare Gateway private resolver Free 50 users then $7/user/mo. Free Tier: MagicDNS free 100 dev perpetual.
IP Address Management (BYOIP / Static IP / Elastic IP)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsAWS Elastic IP: $0 when attached to running instance/NAT/GWLB, $0.005/hr ($3.60/mo) when idle. BYOIP $0 fee to bring /24+, $0.10/hr advertisement? Actually free. GCP Static IP $0 when in-use, $0.01/hr idle ($7.20/mo). Azure Public IP Basic free static dynamic $0? Standard $0.005/hr idle. Hetzner Floating IP free up to 3, Primary IP free with server. Cloudflare BYOIP: Enterprise $5500/mo min includes 1 /24 BYOIP, $5500/mo per extra prefix + Magic Transit $5000/mo required. Free Tier: In-use Elastic IPs free forever.
NAT Gateway / Egress
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsAWS NAT GW: $0.045/hr (~$32.85/mo) + $0.045/GB processed + $0.09/GB internet egress. GCP Cloud NAT: $0/hr? Actually $0.045/hr per GW (~$32.85/mo) + $0.045/GB processed first 1TB. Azure NAT GW: $0.045/hr + $0.045/GB + $0.005/hr per public IP. Self-host: CX11 $3.29/mo + 20TB traffic, pfSense free. Free Tier: No free NAT GW; GCP $0 gateway in some regions? Self-host cheap $3.29.
Service Mesh Ingress / API Gateway Networking
Controls and protects your APIs — quotas, abuse prevention, and firewalls. Important once you have real traffic or many clients.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare API Shield Free: 100k API calls/day schema validation, discovery free, Pro $20/mo 500k, Business $200/mo 5M. AWS API GW: REST $3.50/M requests + $0.09/GB egress, HTTP API $1.00/M + $0.09/GB. GCP Apigee X PayG $4/M API calls. Kong Konnect Free 1 runtime, Plus $250/mo per node. Tyk OSS free self-host, Cloud $75/mo. Free Tier: Cloudflare API Shield Free 100k/day forever.
Uptime Health Checks / Synthetic Probing
Tells you when things break and why. You cannot fix what you cannot see — this is how you keep downtime short.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Health Checks: Linked to LB free 1 LB with health checks 1-min, $5/mo per extra monitor (60s), $0.50/M DNS checks. Route53: $0.50/mo per basic check 30s, $0.75/mo fast 10s, $1/mo HTTPS string match. UptimeRobot Free: 50 monitors 5-min interval free forever, Pro $8/mo 50x1-min. Better Stack Free: 10 monitors 3-min, 1 status page, $24/mo 30 monitors 30-sec + incident management. Free Tier: UptimeRobot 50 free forever.
Advanced Traffic Management (Weighted / Latency / Geo / Failover)
Runs in multiple regions for speed and resilience. Enterprise-grade reliability and the hardest to retrofit.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare: Free 1 LB incl weighted/latency/geo steering, $5/mo extra LB + $0.50/M LB queries. Route53 Traffic Flow: $50/mo per Traffic Policy (hosted records) + $0.50/zone + $0.40/M queries + $0.50/healthcheck + $100/mo Advanced Controls (arc). NS1: $50/mo starter 1M queries + $75/mo for traffic steering advanced, $50/mo Pulsar RUM steering, $0.85/M after 1M. Free Tier: Cloudflare 1 LB free perpetual.
Private Link / Private Service Connect
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsAWS PrivateLink: $0.01/hr per interface endpoint (~$7.20/mo) + $0.01/GB data processed + $0.032/hr NAT? Interface $0.01. GCP PSC: $0.01/hr endpoint (~$7.44/mo) + $0.01/GB + $0.01/hr rule. Azure Private Link same $7.30/mo. Cloudflare Tunnel Free: Unlimited tunnels, unlimited bandwidth (fair use via WARP client), 50 users free Zero Trust, then $7/user/mo Teams. Tailscale App Connector Free 100 devices. Free Tier: Cloudflare Tunnel free unlimited forever.
Inter-VPC Peering / Transit Gateway
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsVPC Peering: $0 setup fee, data $0.01/GB same region AZ-AZ processed, $0.02/GB cross-region US. Transit Gateway: $0.05/hr per attachment (~$36.50/mo per VPC), $0.02/GB processed. GCP VPC peering $0 setup $0.01/GB egress. Azure VNet peering $0.01/GB same region, $0.02/GB cross-region. Cloudflare Magic WAN $5000/mo base includes transit-like fabric $0.10/GB + connector $5/mo. Free Tier: Peering free setup, only data charged. Tailscale mesh 100 dev free.
VPN Gateway (IPSec Site-to-Site)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsAWS VPN: $0.05/hr per Site-to-Site VPN connection (~$36.50/mo) + $0.09/GB egress + $0.02/GB accelerated? GCP Cloud VPN: $0.05/hr per tunnel (~$36.50) + $0.02/GB egress. Azure VPN Gateway Basic $0.04/hr (~$29/mo, 100 Mbps) VpnGw1 $0.19/hr (~$139/mo, 650 Mbps). Tailscale subnet router free 100 devices, $6/user/mo Pro. Algo VPN free self-host on $5 VPS. Free Tier: self-host + Tailscale 100 dev free.
L4 Load Balancer (NLB / TCP/UDP)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsAWS NLB: $0.0225/hr (~$16.43/mo) + $5.84 per NLCU-hr ($0.006 per NLCU, per LCU: 800 new flows/sec, 100k active, 1GB processed). GCP TCP/UDP LB: $0.025/hr (~$18.25/mo) + $0.008/GCU-hr + egress $0.12/GB. Azure LB Standard $0.025/hr + $0.005/GB processed + rule charges $0.001/hr. Hetzner LB11 $5.83/mo flat incl 20TB. Scaleway LB $6/mo + $24/yr after. Free Tier: none long-term except Hetzner self LB via HAProxy free $3.29.
Origin Shield / Tiered Caching
Stores frequent results in fast memory so you serve less from the database. Big lever for speed and cost.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Tiered Cache: Free, Smart Tiered Caching free (reduces origin 70%). Argo Smart Routing $5/mo + $0.10/GB smart routing. Fastly Origin Shield: Adds $0.10/GB to shield fetch, $50/mo min platform, 1 shield POP free per service. CloudFront Origin Shield: $0.015/GB extra incurred in shield region (us-east-1 etc) on top of $0.085/GB egress. Bunny: Shield PoP $9.99/mo zone + $0.02/GB extra. Free Tier: Cloudflare Tiered Cache free forever best ratio.
Image Optimization / Dynamic Content Acceleration
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Pro $20/mo includes Polish lossy/lossless WebP + Mirage. Images: $5/mo includes 100k stored images, $1/100k delivered, resizing $9/mo for 50k resizing req, $3 per extra 50k, $0.20/1000 transforms? Fastly Image Optimizer: $0.0075/req transformed + $0.12/GB bandwidth + $50/mo min. Bunny Optimizer: $9.99/mo includes min 100GB BW + 2M transformations, after $0.01/1000. Imgix $75/mo 15k originals + $0.08/1000 renditions. Free Tier: Cloudflare Polish on $20 Pro, free transforms trial 500/mo.
mTLS / Client Certificate Authentication at Edge
Encrypts traffic between your users and your servers. Without it browsers flag your site as insecure and you lose trust and search ranking.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare mTLS: Free 2 client CAs with Access 50 users, $10/mo per 100 client certs after? Actually Access $7/user/mo includes unlimited client certs + revocation. Enterprise $5000 includes. AWS ALB mTLS: ALB $0.0225/hr + trust store $0.15/hr (~$109.50/mo per store) + LCU $0.008. API Gateway mTLS $3.50/M + trust store $0.15/hr. smallstep CA self-host free open-source. GCP Client Auth LB free? $0.025/hr. Free Tier: Cloudflare 2 certs forever.
Log Delivery / Real-time Logs / Edge Log Streaming
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Logpush to R2: Free (R2 storage $0.015/GB/mo), to S3/HTTP $0.12/GB log volume? Actually free to R2, $0.10/GB to external? Workers Logpush $5/mo. CloudFront Real-time: $0.03 per million log lines + $0.09/GB delivery to Kinesis/S3. Fastly Real-time Logging $0.01/10k lines ( $1/M) + $0.12/GB syslog destination. Datadog Log Ingest $0.10/GB ingested + $1.70/M scanned + retention $0.02/GB-month. Grafana Loki Free 50GB/mo logs included. Free Tier: Cloudflare→R2 free 10GB storage perpetual.
Rate Limiting / Bot Management (Edge)
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Rate Limiting Free: 1 rule, 10 sec period, 1200 sec timeout free. Advanced Rate Limiting $5/mo for 10k good req? Pro includes $5/mo 100k good, $10/mo 500k? Actually Pricing: $5/mo for 100k good requests counted, $0.05/10k after. Bot Management: Free basic on Free plan, Pro includes more, Business $200/mo includes advanced bot + scoring, Enterprise Bot Management $2000/mo add-on + Super Bot Fight Mode free. AWS WAF Rate-Based: $5/ACL + $1/rule + $0.60/M requests. Free Tier: 1 rate rule free forever, Turnstile CAPTCHA free unlimited.
Multi-CDN Switching / CDN Interconnect
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare LB Multi-CDN: Free 1 origin pool, $5/mo per extra LB origin groups, $0.50/M LB queries. Cedexis (Citrix ITM) Free Community 5M RPM then $500/mo Lite 50M, $1500 Enterprise. Mlytics Pro $999/mo includes 500TB aggregated + real-time switching + reports. Akamai Multi-CDN $2500/mo min. Fastly + Cedexis switching custom pricing $50/mo min per CDN. Free Tier: Cloudflare 1 multi-origin free perpetual.
How this professional networking and content delivery checklist works.
Each requirement below is something a professional networking and content delivery build typically needs. Pick one of the four researched options — recommended, free, cheaper or paid — add your own with "Other", or skip the requirement if your project doesn't need it. Nothing is mandatory; the plan on the right tracks what you've decided so nothing gets forgotten.
Your picks are saved in this browser automatically, so you can come back anytime. Options are researched per build level and refreshed as vendors change their plans — always verify details on the provider's page before committing.