8

If I have an EC2 instance, running a web app (HTTP), and I have an Amazon-provided SSL certificate, I can use CloudFront to make the EC2 instance accessible via HTTPS, handling the certificate automatically. Is this a legitimate use of CloudFront, or should this be done differently?

2
  • 1
    did you try using an Application Load Balancer? depending on your use case perhaps CF is overkill Sep 19, 2021 at 17:17
  • 2
    @OscarDeLeón I looked at ALB, however the base price seems pretty high for this particular instance - the ALB would cost about as much as the instance itself.
    – mitchus
    Sep 19, 2021 at 18:49

1 Answer 1

12

Yes using CloudFront is a legitimate way to enable https, and (as iBug pointed out in comments) can reduce your bandwidth egress costs a little. Another option is to use an application balancer, which integrates with AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) to enable https.

A lower cost method is to install a certificate directly on your EC2 instance using Lets Encrypt and some of their compatible software. You can't use an ACM certificate with just an EC2 instance. Certbot is a common piece of software used to request LE certs.

3
  • Thanks for these pointers, I will be checking out Lets Encrypt
    – mitchus
    Sep 19, 2021 at 18:50
  • Using CloudFront generally reduces your cost if the origin is an EC2 instance (or S3). EC2 and S3 charges a flat egress price while CloudFront charges "use more, pay less", and it even starts lower (8.5¢ for US / Canada vs EC2 9¢).
    – iBug
    Sep 20, 2021 at 5:53
  • Thanks iBug I added your comment to the answer. AWS bandwidth is pretty expensive either way, for some sites I use an external caching CDN which can reduce costs more.
    – Tim
    Sep 20, 2021 at 6:48

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .