Overview
Gcore is a Luxembourg-headquartered provider of CDN, cloud and security services. Its CDN runs on 210+ points of presence with more than 200 Tbps of capacity, accelerating both static assets and dynamically generated content, with video streaming and large-file delivery as common uses.
Pricing changed to a single pay-as-you-go plan that replaced the older Free, Start and Pro tiers. Every self-service account gets the whole 210+ PoP network, the first 1 TB of traffic free each month and paid traffic from €0.01/GB, falling to €0.005/GB above 2 PB. There is no subscription fee and no card is needed to start. Enterprise contracts add custom DDoS protection and phone support.
Alongside the CDN, Gcore sells managed authoritative DNS on 210+ anycast servers with GeoDNS, weighted balancing, health checks and DNSSEC (beta), plus a separate WAF, bot management and DDoS protection.
Existing customers on the retired Free, Start and Pro plans are not moved automatically and can switch themselves. For large or unusual workloads, the Enterprise plan adds custom traffic volumes, infrastructure options such as private interconnects, 24/7 phone support and negotiated terms.
Pricing and plans
Free tier · no card
PAYG plan: first 1 TB of CDN traffic and 10,000 image optimisations free every month on the full 210+ PoP network, no subscription fee.
At the limit Bills overage CDN traffic past the free 1 TB a month is billed pay-as-you-go.
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| PAYG | €0 base, €0.01/GB | First 1 TB free; €0.008/GB 500 TB-1 PB; €0.0065/GB to 2 PB; €0.005/GB above |
| Requests | €0.75 per 1M | Beyond the included request volume |
| Image optimisation | €1 per 10,000 | 10,000 a month included |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom L3/L4 DDoS, 24/7 phone support, custom terms |
What it does
- Dynamic content acceleration
- Speeds up dynamically generated responses, not only static assets.
- DDoS mitigation
- L3, L4 and L7 DDoS protection built into the CDN.
- Image Stack
- Convert to WebP/AVIF, resize and crop via query strings.
- Intelligent caching
- Purge by URL or directory, prefetching, serve-stale on origin failure and origin shielding.
- Managed DNS
- Anycast DNS with GeoDNS, weighted and subnet balancing, health checks, 1-second minimum TTL.
- DevOps integrations
- API, Terraform, OctoDNS and Grafana integration.
Strengths and limitations
Strengths
- 1 TB of free CDN traffic a month on the full network.
- Low flat per-GB price with no regional differences listed.
- EU-headquartered provider.
- CDN, DNS, WAF and DDoS protection from one vendor.
Limitations
- Prices exclude VAT and the pricing page is not readable without cookies.
- DNSSEC on Gcore DNS is marked beta.
- HTTP/3 support is marked beta.
- WAF and DNS prices are not published on the pages read.
Who it suits
Good for
- Hobby and indie sites needing a free CDN tier
- Video and game asset delivery
- Teams wanting an EU-based CDN with DNS
Look elsewhere if
- Teams needing published WAF pricing up front
- Buyers wanting listed certifications before trial
Alternatives to Gcore CDN
| Tool | From | Free option | Stages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare CDN, DNS, WAF and DDoS protection | $20/mo | Free tier | |
| DNSimple DNS hosting and domain management | $0.5/mo | ||
| Amazon CloudFront CDN with bundled WAF and DNS plans | $15/mo | Free tier | |
| CacheFly Throughput-focused CDN | $300/mo | Free tier | |
| ClouDNS Managed DNS with free and low-cost plans | $2.95/mo | Free tier | |
| easyDNS Managed anycast DNS and registrar | $20/yr |
Questions
Does Gcore CDN have a free plan?
Yes. The PAYG plan includes the first 1 TB of traffic free each month with no subscription fee.
How much does Gcore CDN cost after the free tier?
€0.01/GB from 1 TB up to 500 TB a month, falling to €0.005/GB above 2 PB, excluding VAT.
Does Gcore offer DNS hosting?
Yes. Gcore Managed DNS runs on 210+ anycast servers with GeoDNS, health checks and DNSSEC in beta.
Where is Gcore based?
In Luxembourg.
Sources read for this page