AWS CloudFront CDN
Table of Contents
Overview
Amazon CloudFront is a fast, globally distributed content delivery network (CDN). Cache content at edge locations worldwide to reduce latency, improve performance, and provide high availability with DDoS protection.
When to Use
- Static website hosting and assets
- API acceleration and dynamic content
- Video and media streaming
- Mobile application content
- Large file downloads
- Real-time data distribution
- DDoS protection for origins
- Origin isolation and security
Quick Start
Minimal working example:
Reference Guides
Detailed implementations in the references/ directory:
Best Practices
✅ DO
- Use Origin Access Identity (OAI) for S3
- Enable HTTPS only for viewers
- Compress content at CloudFront
- Set appropriate cache TTLs
- Use cache invalidation cautiously
- Enable WAF for protection
- Monitor CloudWatch metrics
- Use multiple origins for redundancy
❌ DON'T
- Make S3 buckets public
- Cache sensitive data
- Use HTTP for production
- Ignore cache headers
- Create excessive invalidations
- Skip WAF protection


