Bunny.net
Slovenian CDN with edge storage, video streaming, and DNS - lightning-fast content delivery at pay-as-you-go pricing
Quick Overview
| Company | Bunny CDN d.o.o. |
|---|---|
| Category | CDN / Content Delivery Network |
| Headquarters | Ljubljana, Slovenia |
| EU Presence | Yes - Slovenia (EU) |
| Data Centers | 110+ PoPs globally (strong European presence) |
| Open Source | No |
| GDPR Compliant | Yes |
| Main Features | CDN, Edge Storage, Stream (video hosting), DNS, image optimization, DDoS protection |
| Pricing | Pay-as-you-go (from €0.01/GB) |
| Best For | Developers and businesses needing fast, affordable CDN with video streaming capabilities |
| Replaces | Cloudflare, AWS CloudFront |
Detailed Review
Bunny.net, originally known as BunnyCDN, is a Slovenian content delivery network founded in 2015 in Ljubljana. Despite being a relatively young company in a market dominated by giants like Cloudflare, Akamai, and AWS CloudFront, Bunny.net has quickly earned a reputation for exceptional performance, transparent pricing, and developer-friendly tools. The company has grown organically without venture capital, which has allowed it to focus on building a sustainable business rather than chasing growth at all costs. This European-born CDN now operates over 110 points of presence globally, with particularly strong coverage across Europe.
Performance and Global Network
Bunny.net consistently ranks among the fastest CDNs in independent benchmarks. The network spans over 110 PoPs (Points of Presence) across six continents, with excellent coverage in Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific. European users benefit from numerous edge locations throughout the continent, ensuring minimal latency for content delivery. The company uses a combination of premium transit providers and peering arrangements to optimize routing and deliver content with industry-leading speed.
The CDN supports modern protocols including HTTP/2, HTTP/3, and QUIC out of the box. Brotli compression, smart caching, and automatic image optimization help reduce bandwidth consumption while improving performance. The platform also includes a sophisticated edge rules engine that allows developers to customize caching behavior, add headers, perform redirects, and implement other logic at the edge without touching their origin server.
Edge Storage and Bunny Stream
Bunny Edge Storage is a globally replicated storage solution designed to work seamlessly with the CDN. Unlike traditional object storage services that require you to configure CDN distribution separately, Edge Storage automatically replicates your files across multiple regions and serves them from the nearest edge location. This makes it ideal for static assets, downloads, and any content that needs global distribution with minimal latency. Storage pricing starts at just €0.01 per GB per month, making it one of the most affordable edge storage solutions available.
Bunny Stream is the company's video hosting and delivery platform. It handles video transcoding, adaptive bitrate streaming (HLS), and delivery through the global CDN. The platform automatically generates multiple quality levels from uploaded videos, creates thumbnails and preview animations, and provides an embeddable player. For businesses needing video hosting without the complexity of building their own transcoding pipeline, Stream offers a compelling turnkey solution at competitive pricing.
DNS and Additional Services
Bunny DNS is a global anycast DNS service with servers distributed across the CDN network. DNS queries are answered from the nearest edge location, resulting in extremely fast resolution times. The service supports standard DNS features including A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, and SRV records, as well as advanced features like GeoDNS for location-based routing. DNS is included free for CDN customers, making it easy to manage both DNS and content delivery in one place.
The platform also includes built-in DDoS protection, SSL certificate management with automatic Let's Encrypt integration, and a powerful API for programmatic control. The Bunny Optimizer feature provides on-the-fly image optimization, including WebP and AVIF conversion, resizing, and quality adjustment, all performed at the edge for optimal performance.
Pricing Philosophy
Bunny.net uses a pay-as-you-go pricing model with no minimum commitments or monthly fees. CDN pricing starts at €0.01 per GB in Europe and North America, with slightly higher rates for other regions. This transparent, usage-based approach stands in contrast to the complex pricing tiers of AWS CloudFront or the opaque enterprise pricing of many traditional CDNs. For many use cases, Bunny.net delivers 80-90% of the performance of premium CDNs at 20-30% of the cost.
The company also offers volume discounts for high-traffic customers, but the base pricing is competitive enough that many businesses never need to negotiate custom rates. There are no hidden fees for features like SSL, DDoS protection, or basic image optimization, which are included in the standard CDN pricing. This approach has earned Bunny.net a loyal following among developers and small businesses who appreciate predictable, reasonable costs.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- From about €0.01/GB with no minimum or commitment
- Edge storage, video streaming, DNS and image optimisation on one account
- 110+ points of presence with a strong European footprint
- DDoS protection included
- Slovenian company, EU jurisdiction for request logs
Cons
- No edge computing, unlike Gcore
- Less suited to enterprise contracts and dedicated support
- Very large media operations will negotiate better elsewhere
- Not open source
Alternatives to Bunny.net
Looking for other European CDN providers? Here are some alternatives worth considering:
AWS CloudFront
Amazon's global CDN with deep AWS integration
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, Bunny.net is headquartered in Ljubljana, Slovenia, which is an EU member state. The company is subject to GDPR and EU data protection laws. While its CDN network spans globally, the company and its management are European.
Both are excellent CDNs. Cloudflare offers a generous free tier and extensive security features, but is a US company. Bunny.net is European, often faster in benchmarks, and uses transparent pay-as-you-go pricing. Cloudflare has more features like Workers and Pages, while Bunny.net excels at pure CDN performance and video streaming.
Bunny.net offers a 14-day free trial for new accounts. After that, it uses pay-as-you-go pricing with no monthly minimums. While there is no permanent free tier like Cloudflare, the low starting prices (from €0.01/GB) mean that costs for small sites are minimal, often just a few dollars per month.
Bunny Stream is a video hosting and delivery platform. You upload videos, and it automatically transcodes them into multiple quality levels for adaptive streaming. It includes an embeddable player, generates thumbnails, and delivers video through the global CDN. It is ideal for businesses that need video hosting without building their own infrastructure.
Yes, Bunny.net includes DDoS protection at no extra cost. The distributed nature of the CDN network inherently provides protection against volumetric attacks, and the platform includes additional mitigation capabilities. For most websites and applications, the included protection is sufficient.
Yes, Bunny Optimizer provides on-the-fly image optimization including automatic WebP and AVIF conversion, resizing, quality adjustment, and cropping. These transformations happen at the edge, so optimized images are served with minimal latency. The feature is available as an add-on to the standard CDN service.