Two European edge platforms a size apart: Gcore’s carrier-grade network and security bundle against Bunny’s price-first product machine.
Winner depends on your workload.
Winner depends on: whether you’re buying a network (Gcore’s 210+ PoPs, bundled DDoS/WAAP, EU-sovereignty posture) or a price-performance product suite (Bunny’s rates, storage, video and optimizer) — and how much a 1 TB free tier changes your entry maths.
Side by side
| Gcore | Bunny | |
|---|---|---|
| Network | 210+ PoPs, 200+ Tbps, ~30 ms average latency | 119 PoPs Standard + 10-PoP Volume tier |
| Entry pricing | Free plan: 1 TB/month, all core features; paid from a few dollars | $1/month minimum; $0.01/GB NA/EU, Volume from $0.005/GB |
| Security | L3/L4/L7 DDoS included; WAAP (WAF + bots + API) available | DDoS basics included; Bunny Shield layer |
| Platform | CDN, streaming, cloud/GPU compute, DNS | CDN, storage, Stream, Optimizer, Edge Scripting, DNS |
| Base | Luxembourg — EU headquarters and data posture | Slovenia — EU-based likewise |
| Buyer center | Gaming, streaming, security-sensitive, EU-sovereignty | Startups to mid-market, cost-and-features |
Two Europeans, one size apart
Both companies sell the same escape route — hyperscaler-grade delivery without hyperscaler pricing, from an EU legal base — but they are built a size apart. Gcore, out of Luxembourg with gaming-industry roots, runs a carrier-grade network: 210-plus PoPs, capacity north of 200 Tbps, always-on DDoS scrubbing across L3/L4/L7, and a product line that now stretches to GPU cloud. Bunny, out of Slovenia, built the mid-market’s favorite product machine: aggressive rates, storage with free transfer into the CDN, a video platform, an image optimizer, and a dashboard small teams genuinely enjoy. Network-first versus product-first is the whole matchup in one line.
Entry maths and the free terabyte
Gcore’s most disruptive number is free: its entry plan includes 1 TB of monthly traffic with core CDN features intact — enough to run real small projects at zero cost — with paid usage starting at a few dollars and a single global rate rather than regional bands. Bunny has no free tier but a $1/month minimum and rates that stay honest at scale: $0.01/GB NA/EU on the Standard network, $0.005/GB on Volume for the first 500 TB. Worked example at 8 TB/month, mostly EU: Gcore ≈ free for the first terabyte plus overage on the rest at its published global rate; Bunny ≈ $80 on Standard. At 100 TB the two quote within the same band and both will sharpen further on request — at this end of the market, list rates are opening bids. Figures checked against provider pricing pages, July 2026.
Where Gcore pulls ahead
Three places. Security depth: DDoS mitigation across all layers is bundled rather than tiered, and the WAAP product folds WAF, bot management and API protection into one purchase — a meaningful consolidation for security-sensitive estates. Network muscle for hard workloads: gaming distribution, live streaming at high concurrency and latency-sensitive dynamic traffic benefit from the raw PoP count and peering breadth, the same qualities we weighed in Gcore vs OVHcloud. And the sovereignty posture: for European organizations that need EU-headquartered infrastructure end to end, Gcore removes a compliance conversation that no US-based network can.
Where Bunny pulls ahead
The product surface, and the invoice. Bunny’s storage-plus-CDN integration (free internal transfer), Stream’s included player and transcoding, the $9.50 Optimizer and maturing edge scripting cover, in one bill, what elsewhere becomes three vendors. Its pricing granularity — enable and disable regions per pull zone — gives cost control Gcore’s single global rate abstracts away. And in independent latency indices Bunny consistently ranks among the quickest networks despite its size, which is why it keeps winning the startup-to-mid-market segment it shares with the field from Bunny vs KeyCDN.
How to decide
Ask what you are actually buying. If the answer is a network with security attached — gaming launches, live events, DDoS exposure, EU-sovereignty requirements — Gcore is the more serious instrument and its free tier makes trying it costless. If the answer is delivery plus a product suite at the sharpest sustainable price, Bunny remains the segment’s default for good reason. The two also pair well: more than one European platform we advise runs Bunny for asset delivery and Gcore for its streaming or protected workloads.
Choosing a European edge partner? The assessment maps both platforms against your workload and compliance requirements.