A CDN you operate, not a platform you inherit
Cloud CDN and Cloud DNS are the product. You are not unpicking Workers, orange-cloud defaults and fifty add-ons to cache a storefront.
Aptranet vs Cloudflare
What Cloudflare is — and what Aptranet is instead.
Cloudflare is a security and edge platform. The CDN is one surface among Workers, Zero Trust, WAF, DNS and a free tier that carries a large share of the public web.
Where Aptranet wins
Why teams leave Cloudflare for Cloud CDN and Cloud DNS.
1-second DNS TTL and Origin Shield
Failovers and deploys move on a production clock. Misses collapse through Origin Shield instead of fan-out from 210+ PoPs onto your origin.
Video, images and large files on 200+ Tbps
The same edge delivers 4K, live in the 0.5-4 s range, installers and WebP/AVIF transforms. Delivery is not an afterthought to a WAF.
Peering you can name
14,000+ peering partners, 120+ IXPs, 30 ms average latency. You are not sharing anycast fate with every free-tier blog on the internet.
Be precise
Where Cloudflare still wins.
Switching because of a slogan is how you buy the wrong edge. These are the honest concessions.
They have a larger security catalogue
Zero Trust, a full WAF product line and Workers are Cloudflare strengths. If those are the purchase, buy them. Aptranet includes L3-L7 DDoS mitigation, TLS 1.3 and token authentication in the delivery path — not a 40-product security suite.
They publish more cities
Cloudflare claims 330+ cities. Aptranet publishes 210+ PoPs with 200+ Tbps. Footprint is not the only score; miss handling, DNS TTL and origin protection decide incidents.
Side by side
Aptranet and Cloudflare, on the facts we will stand behind.
| Topic | Aptranet | Cloudflare |
|---|---|---|
| Primary job | Cloud CDN + Cloud DNS | Security and edge platform |
| Points of presence | 210+ | 330+ cities (their figure) |
| Network capacity | 200+ Tbps | Not a single published Tbps figure for CDN |
| Average latency | 30 ms worldwide | Varies; often quoted ~28-32 ms |
| Origin Shield | Yes | Tiered cache; different product shape |
| Image optimization | WebP/AVIF at the edge | Polish / Image Resizing as add-ons |
| Authoritative DNS min TTL | 1 second | Typically higher on free/pro DNS |
| DNS health checks and GeoDNS | Country, ASN, subnet, health | Load balancing as a paid add-on |
| Free tier | Paid, predictable EUR plans | Yes — and it is crowded |
| BYOIP | Yes | Enterprise |
Choose Aptranet if
- You want a CDN and DNS control plane, not a security megaplatform
- Origin protection and purge have to work on launch day
- You need 1-second DNS TTLs for failover
- Video, large files or image transforms share the site hostname
Stay with Cloudflare if
- You want a free WAF and bot product on day one
- Workers or Zero Trust are the actual purchase
- You are already all-in on the Cloudflare dashboard
Other comparisons
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes for content delivery and authoritative DNS. No if you are buying Cloudflare for Zero Trust or Workers. They are different products that overlap on CDN.
No. They publish a larger city count. We publish 210+ PoPs, 200+ Tbps, Origin Shield and DNS as a first-class product. Choose on the miss path and the DNS TTL, not a pin map.
Yes. Cloud CDN does not require Cloud DNS. Many teams still move DNS once they feel registrar or platform TTLs.
Aptranet does not run a free CDN for the public web. Starter Cloud CDN is €35/month with included traffic. You are not competing with every free hostname for cache and IP reputation.