StackPath vs Cloudflare Differences

StackPath and Cloudflare, both are firm players in the CDN industry. Therefore, it makes this Stackpath vs Cloudflare comparison article even more important to decide which one to go for. They both offer some unique features and services which can be useful to your business/website in a unique manner. Read this Stackpath vs Cloudflare differences blog post to understand the key differences and make an informative decision.

What is StackPath?

StackPath is the latest entrant in the CDN industry which acquired MaxCDN in 2015 to set foot in the WordPress market. Later on, it also acquired Highwinds, Encrypt.me (VPN service), Staminus, and Fireblade to extend and integrate their services. Now, StackPath successfully delivers a combination of 4 services including CDN, monitoring, WAF, and managed DNS. In fact, it claims to speed up your website by 68% by fetching content from its 35 edge location servers. Whenever a user requests data from a website, the nearest edge location responds to it, making the website load faster. Moreover, StackPath is known to deliver superior web loading services and security against malicious threats.

Furthermore, StackPath is known for its novice-level easy to use UI with an extensive product range, considering its past acquisitions. Moreover, its performance is extraordinary in western nations but you might experience a drop in performance in other regions as the number of data centers is lower.

What is Cloudflare?

Cloudflare is a CDN network, originally intended to stop scammers from harvesting emails off a website. However, their edge networking ended up improving website speed dramatically. In simpler words, Cloudflare is a global content delivery network that was created rather accidentally, which also offers high-end security measures with its reverse proxy solution. The data centers are strategically placed in different locations globally that store the static data on their servers and when a user requests for website content, the nearest Cloudflare server responds to that request. It decreases the travel time of the request and response by eliminating the need for travel all the way to the origin server. As a result, the website loads faster while keeping the user engaged. It can protect the websites from various web security threats including email harvesting, comment spam, cross-site scripting, SQL injection, and DDoS attacks.

Cloudflare is an immensely popular content delivery network with its beginner-friendly ease of use with expert-level features and functionalities. However, it is not limited to that only, there’s more to Cloudflare. It offers high-end web filtering that can block bots from harvesting emails off your website. Moreover, it can limit content spam, fight against hackers, and can efficiently mitigate DDoS attacks.

StackPath vs Clouldflare Server Locations

‘Server locations’ is a crucial factor in deciding which CDN services to go for. You certainly don’t want to spend money on a network that doesn’t even cover the locations of your interest. Currently, Cloudflare have around 200 data centers around the globe. They have placed their servers in almost every corner of the world. Whereas, StackPath operates around 45 data centers, which is quite less comparatively. Recently in January 2021, StackPath increased its locations by moving into into Latin America with its edge POPs. Check out Cloudflare vs Stackpath server location-

StackPath vs Cloudflare Differences: Pricing

The price you pay mostly depends on the type of services you get. Cloudflare offers its basic services for free while StackPath plans start at $10 per month. Here is a detailed breakdown of the pricing structure for Cloudflare and StackPath. Have a clear picture of Stackpath vs Cloudflare pricing.

Cloudflare Pricing Structure

Cloudflare mainly provides four types of plans. Let’s have a look-

Free Plan: the free plan offers the most basic features. This plan can be ideal for personal websites or anyone that would like to explore Cloudflare. Features included in this plan are:

• Mitigation of DDoS attack.
• Access to global Content Delivery Network (except China).
• Shared SSL certificates.

Pro Plan: This plan is available at $20 a month and provides slightly faster access. It is ideal for professional blogging websites that require basic security and performance features. Features included in this plan are:

• Enhanced security feature with WAF (web application firewall).
• Enhanced performance
• Image and mobile optimization
• Advanced control over network
• HTTP/2 prioritization

Business Plan: This plan is available for $200 a month. As the name suggests, this plan is ideal for business websites that require the fastest access, advanced security, and prioritized support. Features included in this plan are:

• WAF rules
• Custom SSL certificates for each site
• 100% uptime guarantee
• CNAME setup
• 24×7 availability of technical support via email and phone
• Image resizing request up to 100K

Enterprise Plan: This is a custom plan and you will have to contact them for the pricing. It offers the highest grade security and performance features. Moreover, they offer custom-tuned services for maximum performance depending on your specific requirements. Features included in this plan are:

• Access to global Content Delivery Network including China
• Multiple custom SSL certificate uploads
• Access to 100-page rules
• Access to account audit logs
• Unlimited custom rulesets with WAF
• Access to raw logs
• Image resizing requests up to 10M
• Role-based account access
• 24×7 availability of customer support via emails and phone
• 100% uptime guarantee
• Advanced DDoS protection with network prioritization

StackPath Pricing Structure 

Let’s have a look at the main pricing plans offered by StackPath-

StackPath CDN Pricing: It is suitable for professional websites and blogs with average traffic levels and standard content. It is available for $10 a month and further includes-

• 1TB a month bandwidth
• Unlimited requests
• Unlimited sites
• SSL traffic
• Private SSL certificate per site
• Security against network-layer DDoS
• Access to global PoPs

This is the most basic plan offered by StackPath. Other CDN plans available with StackPath CDN are:

Edge Delivery 20: This plan is available at $20 a month. It is suitable for professional websites and blogs with average traffic levels and standard content and includes:

• Monitoring (1 service)
• DNS requests (2M a month)
• 5 rules and WAF (5M a month)
• Bandwidth (1TB a month)
• Access to global PoPs
• 24×7 technical support
• 100% uptime guarantee

Edge Delivery 200: This plan is available at $200 a month. It is suitable for SMB websites and digital stores SaaS property with moderate traffic levels and richer content. It includes:

• Monitoring (5 services)
• DNS requests (5M a month)
• 10 rules and WAF (10M a month)
• Bandwidth (10TB a month)
• Access to global PoPs
• 24×7 technical support
• 100% uptime guarantee

Edge Delivery 2000: The plan is available at $2000 a month. It is suitable for large cloud property with advanced requirements. It includes:

• Monitoring (10 services)
• DNS requests (10M a month)
• 20 rules and WAF (50M a month)
• Bandwidth (100TB a month)
• Access to global PoPs
• 24×7 technical support
• 100% uptime guarantee

There are some additional resources also offered some additional costs. You can avail 1M additional WAF requests for a month only in $0.5. Pay $1 for 1 additional WAF rule a month. You can avail 1 additional monitoring service for $2 a month.

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Comparing StackPath and Cloudflare Features

Performance

In terms of performance, Cloudflare efficiently reduces latency with an effective load balancing scheme. With over 200 data centers across different countries all over the world, it definitely covers every possible region. Moreover, Cloudflare’s proxy system provides a wide range of content optimization features for smart routing and accelerated mobile links. It reduces bandwidth consumption and allows the content to load faster. On the other hand, StackPath also offers a global traffic management system that not only directs the traffic to the best available route but also minimizes the latency by reducing the travel distance. It is equipped with SSDs (solid-state drives) which ensures excellent data resilience and uptime improvement with the fastest write or read times, resulting in an excellent performance. Here at Templatetoaster website builder you may read Imperva vs Cloudflare, Sucuri vs Cloudflare, Fastly vs Cloudflare, Cloudflare vs Cloudfront, Cloudflare vs Akamai.

WordPress Integration

WordPress Websites sure attract a chunk of traffic every day, which makes WordPress integration a key factor here. None of the CDN services feature push-button-easy to integrate. However, StackPath sure offers you an efficient alternative to that. With StackPath CDN, after setting up your pull zone, you can integrate StackPath through the W3 total cache plugin. On the other hand, Cloudflare integrates independently of WordPress. You are needed to assign a new DNS server to your domain name after signing up for Cloudflare.

Security

With StackPath, you will get lots in-built security features including WAF and Mod Security. Moreover, you get some additional settings measures including network layer DDoS protection and physical security of data centers with biometric and other safeguards.

Meanwhile, Cloudflare specializes in security as it was designed with the primary purpose of chasing scammers off your website. It protects the origin infrastructure while offering better control for application protection. Some of the security features it offers are:

• Identification of abnormal traffic and protection against it
• Protection against direct attacks via security tunnel
• Shared intelligence across entire network anticipates attacks
• Blocking of bots

Customer Support

In terms of customer support, it is vital that one must be able to contact the support team quickly when they encounter a problem. The efficiency of a customer support team plays a vital role when comparing both CDN services. There can be many possible issues you can face when you need to seek immediate assistance, like:

• Your website is crashing
• Website is down at certain locations
• Encountering issues while setting up CDN services
• Need for additional bandwidth

The aforementioned are some instances when you can need immediate assistance. With StackPath, you get the feature of 24×7 customer support with every plan. Meanwhile, with Cloudflare, you get customer support with paid plans only. However, the Cloudflare community is quite large and responsive, which means you might as well resolve your issue even without having to seek professional assistance.

Who uses Cloudflare

Cloudflare is basically a reverse proxy, which means it was intentionally created for security purposes. However, it dramatically enhanced the performance of websites. Therefore, Cloudflare now not only is a great protection against malicious threats but also is a smart CDN. Some of the most popular websites using Cloudflare are StackOverflow, FounderLY, CodeGuard, Montecito Bank, APNIC.net, Embed.ly, and thousands of other entry-level websites. You should go for Cloudflare when you want to experience a free CDN service. It has the best free plan with generous features. All in all, go for Cloudflare when you have a diverse audience from different parts of the world and the security of your website concerns you most.

Who uses StackPath

StackPath is ideal for websites that look for advanced security and monitoring services. The pricing structure is also flexible with no hidden charges. Some of the popular websites using StackPath CDN are WPBeginner, 9gag, BuySellAds, WPLift, WPEngine, Yoast.com, The Next Web, etc. if you see closely, you’ll see a pattern. StackPath is used by standard WordPress blogs with less bandwidth-consuming websites. Considering that WordPress is popular due to its capability of attracting a good chunk of traffic, StackPath is a better option. It acquired MaxCDN in the past which has better WordPress configuration possibilities, hence, making it a better match for WordPress sites.

StackPath vs Cloudflare: Comparison Pros

StackPath vs Cloudflare Comparison cons