CDN Providers

CDN Providers

CDN Providers

Definition Of A CDN

A CDN (content delivery network) is a network of servers distributed globally. CDN aims to provide faster content delivery to users by reducing the physical distance between the server and the user.

For example, a user from the US wants to read an article created at a UK-based server. Without CDN, the loading time will be very long, as the request has to cross the Atlantic to reach the original server. CDN creates points of presence (PoPs) in different locations globally, which store a cached version of the original website content and deliver that content to the users' location.

Main Reasons To Use CDN

  1. CDN increases the speed of the website, reducing the latency and delivery costs.
  2. CDN provides high scalability, being able to serve 40-200 Tbps at the peak of the traffic.
  3. CDN acts as an additional security layer for the original server since it hides the original servers real IP address.
  4. Currently, many businesses go virtual starting from shops to tele-health services. CDN support businesses to overcome challenges of media delivery.

CDN Provider

A CDN provider is a vendor company that helps businesses provide content to end-users globally over a content delivery network.

Best CDN Providers

Cloudflare

Cloudflare is one of the most popular American CDN providers. It is famous for its ease of use, as well as expert-level features and great performance. CDNPerf ranks Cloudflare in the top 5 in terms of HTTP request-response times.

To use Cloudflare, you need to update your DNS nameservers, and the service starts working automatically. Cloudflare has advantages such as limiting content spam, providing a high-security level by detecting and mitigating DDoS attacks, etc. It also provides support for standards like IPv6, HTTP/2 and SPDY.

Cloudflare has free and Pro plans. The price of the Pro Plan is $20 per month.

Fastly

According to CDNPerf, Fastly is ranked as the second-fastest CDN for the UK and has good speed indicators in the world. The services of Fastly are more useful for big companies, providing them with a high level of performance.

The most impressive feature of Fastly is the high level of configurability. It has support for video caching and controls for manipulating HTTP headers to customise the content visualisation issues.

KeyCDN

KeyCDN is a budget CDN. It is a good choice for first-time users. KeyCDN has a simple setup system with a well-designed dashboard. After signing up, you get 24GB without providing payment details. KeyCDN fully supports IPv6.

For experienced users, KeyCDN has the Origin Shield option. It allows using the KeyCDN server as the source for updates instead of the origin, which reduces server load. It also allows watching CDN performance in near real-time, using special reporting tools. There is another feature such as Block Referrer, which blacklists domains hotlinking content. Image processing is available to optimise images.

StackPath

StackPath concentrates its services mainly on the West. It is user-friendly and has a good web console for settings management. and has excellent technical support.

StackPatch provides users free shared SSL or allows the use of their SSL certificate. Anti-DDoS technology and a capable web application firewall are available. To customise the behaviour of CDN at diverse phases of CDN requests, StackPath has the EdgeRules tool.

Akamai

Akamai is one of the oldest and most famous CDN providers. According to CDNPerf, Akamai is ranked among the top 5 fastest services worldwide. The company serves up to 30% of the internet traffic and has around 275 000 servers in over 135 countries, providing 24/7 customer support.

The target group of Akamai is advanced users, so the setting up might be a bit difficult for beginners.

There is no certain pricing on data, and you can get information by contacting the company.

CDN77

CDN77 is a famous CDN provider with serious clients such as the European Space Agency. The network of CDN77 covers Europe, the US, South America and Asia. It also has one data centre in Australia.

CDN77 has a user-friendly web console, which is convenient for first-time users as well. It has a good performance and is ranked as a lower-to-mid pack player.

Prices start at $0.033/GB for the US and Europe, with Asia and Latin America being more expensive. It also has a 14-day trial without submitting payment details. CDN77 also provides a free Let's Encrypt SSL certificate.

Scroll down to read our indepth Ecommerce Platforms guide. What you should know, Ecommerce Platforms features, price plans and support. Pros and Cons of Ecommerce Platforms as a ecommerce, everything is explained below.

Overview of CDN Providers

Shopify is a software company that specialises in ecommerce software for small to enterprise level businesses.

Shopify is listed as the best ecommerce software related to Ecommerce Platforms. Shopify was founded in 2006 in Ottawa, Canada and currently has over 6,124 employees registered on Linkedin.

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