CDN Comparison
Cloudflare or BunnyCDN: Which CDN Actually Fits Your Site's Traffic
One's a free full-proxy security layer sitting in front of your whole domain; the other's a lean, pay-per-GB pull zone built to move files fast and cheap.
Free
Cloudflare's base CDN, WAF and DNS tier
Pay-per-GB
BunnyCDN's pull-zone pricing model
NVMe
Origin storage speed backing either CDN
24/7
Human support for origin-side CDN setup
In short
Cloudflare vs BunnyCDN comes down to what you actually need at the edge: Cloudflare is a free full-proxy CDN bundling a web application firewall, DDoS mitigation and DNS management in one dashboard, while BunnyCDN is a pull-zone CDN priced per gigabyte that focuses purely on caching and delivering static assets fast. Security-conscious sites tend to pick Cloudflare; asset-heavy sites optimizing raw delivery cost often pick BunnyCDN.
Plenty of site owners run both together — Cloudflare proxying the whole domain for security and DNS, BunnyCDN as a dedicated pull zone for images, video or downloads.
Picking a CDN is really a question about what problem you're trying to solve. If your site keeps getting hit by bot traffic, login-page brute forcing or the occasional DDoS attempt, that's a security problem a full-proxy CDN like Cloudflare is built to absorb. If your problem is a media library, a downloads page or a video-heavy course platform that's expensive to serve straight from origin, that's a delivery-cost problem BunnyCDN's pay-per-GB pull zones are built to solve cheaply. Neither tool is objectively better — they're solving different halves of the same performance question.
Whichever CDN you choose, it sits in front of an origin server, and that origin still has to generate the pages and serve the cache misses. Hosting Cheap's plans run on pure NVMe SSD storage with LiteSpeed caching, so whether Cloudflare is proxying every request or BunnyCDN is only pulling static files on a cache miss, the origin response feeding that edge network is fast rather than the bottleneck.
What Cloudflare Actually Does at the Edge
Cloudflare works as a full reverse proxy: your domain's DNS points to Cloudflare, every request for your site passes through its network first, and Cloudflare decides what to cache, what to block and what to pass through to your origin server. That architecture is why Cloudflare's free plan includes a web application firewall, DDoS mitigation and basic bot-fight capabilities alongside caching — security and delivery are handled by the same layer because every request already has to pass through it.
The tradeoff is that a full proxy sees and can act on everything, which is powerful but also means Cloudflare's caching rules, page rules and SSL/TLS mode settings need to be configured correctly or dynamic pages like a WordPress admin login or a checkout flow can get cached incorrectly. It's a more all-encompassing tool, and that breadth is exactly what makes it the default choice for most small business and WordPress sites.
What BunnyCDN Actually Does at the Edge
BunnyCDN takes a narrower approach: you create a pull zone pointed at your origin, and BunnyCDN's edge servers fetch and cache whatever files that zone is configured to serve — typically images, video, CSS, JS and downloads — then serve those cached copies from the nearest edge location on repeat requests. It doesn't sit in front of your dynamic pages or your DNS by default, so a WordPress site's HTML still gets requested from origin while its media library gets served from BunnyCDN's edge network.
That narrower scope is a deliberate tradeoff for lower cost and simpler configuration. There's no WAF or DDoS layer built into the base pull zone product the way there is with Cloudflare, so BunnyCDN is best understood as a delivery accelerator you add on top of a security setup you already have, rather than a replacement for one.
Pricing Models: Free Full-Proxy vs Pay-Per-GB
Cloudflare's free tier costs nothing and covers a broad range of everyday traffic, which makes it an easy default for a low-to-medium traffic site — the tradeoff is that its free tier's caching and security controls are more general-purpose, and premium rulesets, image optimization and more granular WAF controls sit behind paid plans. BunnyCDN instead charges per gigabyte of data transferred out of its edge network, with no free proxy tier, which means cost scales directly with how much media or video your site actually pushes.
For a mostly-text site with a handful of images, that difference barely matters — Cloudflare's free tier alone likely covers it. For a photography portfolio, a video course platform or a downloads-heavy site, BunnyCDN's pay-per-GB model can end up cheaper per gigabyte than a general-purpose CDN's paid tiers, precisely because it isn't bundling in a firewall and DNS management you may not need on that specific asset path.
Which One Actually Fits Your Site
If your priority is stopping bad bot traffic, adding a WAF, and getting free DNS and SSL orchestration in one place, Cloudflare is the more complete tool and it costs nothing to start. If your priority is shaving delivery cost and latency off a large media library or video catalog and you already have security handled elsewhere — including through your host's own protections — BunnyCDN's leaner, cheaper pull zones are the better fit for that specific job.
The two aren't mutually exclusive: a common setup runs Cloudflare in front of the whole domain for DNS, SSL and the WAF, with BunnyCDN configured as a pull zone specifically for a media subdomain or a downloads path. Either way, both CDNs are still only as fast as the origin they're pulling from on a cache miss, which is where NVMe-backed hosting with LiteSpeed caching does the part of the job neither CDN can do for you.
A Fast Origin Makes Either CDN Choice Look Better
A CDN only helps with what it can cache. Every dynamic request, every cache miss and every first-time visitor to a page still has to be generated by your origin server, and that's the part a CDN provider has no control over.
Hosting Cheap's plans pair pure NVMe SSD storage with LiteSpeed caching so that whichever CDN sits in front — Cloudflare's full proxy or BunnyCDN's pull zones — the origin response backing it is fast, free SSL is already handled, and a slow database query isn't quietly undoing the CDN's work.
- NVMe SSD storage for fast cache-miss and dynamic responses
- LiteSpeed caching that complements either CDN's edge cache
- Free auto-renewing SSL so origin and CDN certificates stay aligned
- 24/7 human support if a CDN configuration needs origin-side changes
Why Hosting Cheap
What you get
NVMe SSD origin storage
A fast origin means fewer slow cache misses regardless of which CDN sits in front.
LiteSpeed caching built in
Server-side caching reduces the load either CDN needs to handle on dynamic pages.
Free auto-renewing SSL
Certificates stay valid without a manual renewal step that could break a CDN's SSL mode.
Free managed migration
Move your site over first, then layer on Cloudflare or BunnyCDN without downtime.
24/7 human support
Get help with DNS, origin IPs or cache-header configuration when a CDN setup gets tricky.
30-day money-back guarantee
Test your CDN setup against real hosting performance before committing long-term.
How It Works
Get set up in a few steps
Benchmark your origin first
Check load times before adding a CDN so you can measure what the edge network actually improves.
Pick Cloudflare, BunnyCDN, or both
Use Cloudflare for security and DNS, BunnyCDN for media-heavy delivery, or run them together.
Set cache rules and monitor
Configure cache headers and page rules, then watch analytics to confirm dynamic pages aren't cached by mistake.
Included
Everything you need, on every plan
- Decide if you need a WAF and DDoS protection (Cloudflare) or pure delivery (BunnyCDN)
- Check whether your traffic is mostly text/HTML or media-heavy
- Confirm SSL/TLS mode compatibility between your origin and the CDN
- Set cache rules that exclude admin, login and checkout pages
- Compare Cloudflare's free tier against BunnyCDN's pay-per-GB cost for your traffic
- Test the setup on a staging subdomain before pointing production DNS
- Keep origin server speed and caching solid regardless of which CDN you choose
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Is Cloudflare or BunnyCDN better for a WordPress site?
For most WordPress sites, Cloudflare's free tier is the more complete starting point because it adds a firewall and DDoS protection alongside caching and DNS. BunnyCDN is worth adding specifically for a media library or downloads section once that traffic gets large enough to matter.
Can I use Cloudflare and BunnyCDN at the same time?
Yes — a common setup uses Cloudflare as the full-proxy in front of the whole domain for security and DNS, with BunnyCDN configured as a pull zone for a specific media path. They serve different layers and don't conflict when set up correctly.
Does BunnyCDN include any security features like Cloudflare's WAF?
No, BunnyCDN's core pull-zone product is focused on caching and delivery rather than security. It doesn't include a web application firewall or DDoS mitigation the way Cloudflare's free tier does, so it's best paired with security handled elsewhere.
Will adding a CDN fix a slow website by itself?
Only for cached, static content. Dynamic pages, database-driven requests and first-time cache misses still depend entirely on your origin server's speed, which is why fast NVMe storage and server-side caching matter regardless of which CDN sits in front.
Is Cloudflare's free plan actually enough, or do I need to pay?
For most small-to-medium sites, Cloudflare's free tier covers CDN caching, basic DDoS protection, SSL and DNS without cost. Paid tiers add things like managed WAF rulesets and image optimization, which matter more once traffic and risk grow.
Why would I pay per gigabyte with BunnyCDN instead of using a free CDN?
Pay-per-GB pricing can work out cheaper than a general-purpose CDN's paid tiers for sites pushing large volumes of images or video, since BunnyCDN isn't bundling in features like a firewall you don't need for that specific delivery job.
Get a Fast Origin Server, Whichever CDN You Choose
NVMe SSD, LiteSpeed caching and free SSL, backed by 24/7 human support — the foundation any CDN needs to actually work.
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