AWS data transfer vs Cloudflare

This comparison holds monthly internet bytes constant and looks only at the public on-demand data-transfer line. It does not include CloudFront, Magic Transit, or enterprise contracts. Numbers below use SightLab’s published snapshot: AWS us-east-1 internet first paid tier $0.09/GB after 100 GB free; Cloudflare R2/Workers documented $0 egress.

Same 2 TB to the internet

AWS us-east-1: 2,048 GB − 100 GB free = 1,948 GB × $0.09 ≈ $175.32 for the month, before taxes. Cloudflare documented egress: $0 for those bytes. The rest of the Cloudflare bill (Workers requests and CPU-ms, or R2 storage and Class A/B) is not zero, and the $5 Workers Paid fee applies if you are on that plan.

At 50 GB/month both sides can land near zero after free allowances. The gap opens when downloads, APIs, or asset libraries cross a few hundred gigabytes.

When AWS is still the rational default

If the bytes never leave us-east-1, AWS same-region traffic is often free on the data-transfer SKU. If you already run the application, database, and IAM story on AWS, moving only the download path has an engineering cost the calculator cannot see. Credits and the 12-month Free Tier also change year one.

How to rerun the comparison

Open the egress calculator, set destination to Internet, enter your monthly GB, and toggle free tier. The comparison table uses a peer region in the same geography so you are not matching Tokyo AWS against Iowa GCP by accident.