Build Log

Portfolio Website on S3 + CloudFront + ACM

AWS static hosting, TLS, CDN flow, DNS integration, and a more security-conscious delivery model for a public portfolio site.

Walkthrough video

Overview

This project documents the creation of my portfolio website using AWS S3, CloudFront, ACM, and Cloudflare DNS. The goal was to build something public-facing while also understanding the infrastructure behind secure static delivery.

Instead of treating the bucket as the directly exposed website, I wanted a cleaner layered flow where CloudFront handled delivery, caching, and TLS termination in front of the origin.

Role Design, setup, troubleshooting

Type Cloud / web delivery project

Focus Architecture, DNS, TLS, CDN flow

Key implementation points

Hosted static content in S3
Used CloudFront for distribution and caching
Configured TLS through AWS Certificate Manager
Integrated external DNS through Cloudflare
Learned the practical flow of origin to edge delivery

Lessons learned

This build taught me a lot about how web delivery works in practice, especially the difference between basic static hosting and a more production-minded CDN-backed setup. It also helped me understand ACM validation behaviour, default root object quirks, and why CloudFront often becomes the preferred public entry point.