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pspeter3

Why netlify and not S3 + CloudFront?

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The final outcome is the same - static files on a cdn - so it won't always matter but netlify lets you:

1) run a build process

2) own domain with automatic ssl and redirecting to w/e www-or-not, https-only etc

3) deploy with git push

4) url rewriting, header inserting, proxying

Exactly, and because of the automatic URL rewriting Netlify will also give you instant cache validation. So when you update your site, unlike most static site hosts, you won't have to wait to see your changes live. But at the same time you get a very cached and very fast site. So best of both worlds.

We have an article on our blog about some of the differences.

Typically you'll have to do quite a bit of work to get the same performance on S3+CloudFront as out of the box with Netlify, and if you do set up things to be as fast there, you'll suffer from slower cache invalidation.

https://www.netlify.com/blog/2015/03/06/comparing-netlify-an...

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