What is a CDN, how does it work and 26 best CDN providers in 2019
If you have multiple files and multiple contents on your website and you want it to load in a little time, you need a CDN. In this article, we will discuss what is CDN, how does a CDN work, types of CDN and the best CDN providers.
Let’s start with a quick introduction to CDN.
What is CDN?
Content Delivery Network is one of the most popular services which enables you to speed up your website load. A CDN has multiple bases in different geographical locations. Each of these servers will host your website in a special time for your website content delivery. A CDN will deliver your website content such as javascript files and HTML pages, images, videos and stylesheets in a little time.
How Does A CDN Work?
It is so important that your audiences in any geographical locations can visit your website quickly. CDN will do this favor to you by storing a cached version of your website content on multiple servers. For example, your website content will be delivered to a visitor in Germany by a local server in that location. This lowest distance between a visitor and the server will improve the website load time and speed.
Types of CDN
There are two types of CDN which are called “push CDN” and “pull CDN”. Let’s check the differences between these two different kinds:
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Push CDN
In push CDN, you are responsible to push your content onto the secondary server manually. This is a good option because you have access to control your website content delivery.
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Pull CDN
In this kind of CDN, because subsidiary servers will pull content from your base server automatically. You just need to configure some settings on your system and CDN will deliver your website data just when there is a request for it.
Benefits of CDN
Content Delivery Network has 4 main benefits for your website, it:
- Increases your website storage and security
- Reduces the network latency
- Improves server load
- Increases the speed of content delivery processes
Many CDN providers serve you this content delivery system, but you need to find the most reliable ones to improve your website performance. Here are the 26 best CDN providers which you can analyze them all together in this article.
Best CDN Services
1- KeyCDN
If you are looking for a powerful CDN with multiple data centers around the world, KeyCDN would be a great option. It has 32 data centers that mean it can deliver your website content through these global systems. If you decide to start your WordPress website design, you don’t need to worry about integrating your WordPress website with KeyCDN. You can do this integration easily by downloading the CDN Enabler plugin. This CDN has the pay-as-you-go price system which helps you to reduce your costs.
2- Cloudflare
Cloudflare is the most popular, powerful and global CDN service. It provides the content delivery process through 180 data centers around the world. Your website can experience high security and maintenance with Cloudflare. They implemented the advanced DDos protection which can handle all kinds of attacks and malicious content.
It also provides real-time analytics that enables you to monitor your website performance. There is a plugin for WordPress website to integrate it with the CDN.
3- CacheFly
CacheFly is the other popular content delivery network that has been servicing for many years. It has based its network on “Anycast” which enables you to enhance your website load speed. If you have many videos or podcasts on your website, this CDN can deliver all these data in no time.
4- Google Cloud CDN
It is one of the most powerful CDNs with low-cost services. It supports your website content with 90 databases around the world and improves your website page loads.
By ordering Google Cloud CDN, you will be provided by free SSL to enhance your website security. It is also a pay-as-you-go policy to save costs.
5- Imperva
Imperva is a powerful CDN service with an advanced caching system. It also provides you with multiple optimization tools to optimize your website content and high-speed storage and a dynamic caching system. You will have a custom control on your website cache files with this CDN.
6- StackPath CDN
If you designed your website on WordPress CMS, StackPath would be one of the best choices for you. It has been known as MaxCDN, but they have been separated from each other for many years. By its intelligent caching system, your website performance will be empowered. StackPath has several servers all around the world and serves you with a real-time analytics feature.
7- Sucuri
Sucuri is known for its website security and monitoring services. Besides this powerful service, it offers its CDN technology with a global database. It improves your WordPress website speed, performance, and optimization. It has many solutions for different website types.
8- Amazon CloudFront
If you are a developer and need an advanced service, Amazon CDN is the best choice. This CDN service is integrated with AWS which improves your website load and delivers your content to each visitor in a little time. You should have more technical knowledge about Amazon Cloudfront set up process.
9- Rackspace
Rackspace CDN is a good option that supports the WordPress website and eCommerce stores. Its servers cover 200 locations around the world that every visitor with any location can deliver your website instantly. It needs advanced technical knowledge to set up the CDN.
As if you need a WordPress hosting service for your WordPress website, Rackspace would be a good option as a CDN.
10- Microsoft Azure CDN
Microsoft Azure is one of the best CDN providers that have Microsoft-managed global data centers. It is a reliable CDN with high security. It can handle any attacks from any source and enhance your website availability. Microsoft Azure CDN reduces your web pages load time and increases its performance. It also provides a pay-as-you-go price strategy.
11- Fastly
It is a proper CDN for web developers and advanced users. If you are a beginner you won’t be able to configure its setting options. It has a powerful system that can control big websites with a large number of users such as Spotify and Reddit. By using this CDN, you will have full control of your website content delivery process. Fastly supports a large file caching that is suitable for uploading large files such as videos, podcasts or images.
12- MetaCDN
This is a powerful combination of the most popular CDNs. By choosing MetaCDN services, you will be provided by Amazon Cloudfront, EdgeCast, and Fastly services. This feature will guarantee your website availability in any condition since your website content has access to three powerful CDN providers with more than 120 data centers. On the other hand, your website load time and performance will be improved.
13- MaxCDN
This is a good service for beginners, which is a subset of StackPath CDN. It has a user-friendly interface that enables you to do set up process easier. It is as powerful as any CDN and helps you to enhance your online business credit. The support team of the MaxCDN is always available to help you toward solving any problem.
14- StackPath
StackPath CDN services are not much global than others. They have just 14 data centers in America, Europe, and Asia. It seems that websites on the US and UK data centers have better performance than other locations. It is also for newcomers to this technology and has a user-friendly interface.
15- CDN77
This is one of the most popular CDN services with 35 bases across the globe. It has a user-friendly web console and is easy to use for beginners to the CDN. CDN77 has power servers in Europe, South America, Asia, and Australia. You need to pay a large amount of money for utilizing CDN77 services.
16- Leaseweb
Leaseweb is one of the best CDN services which fulfills all of your expectations from a content delivery network. Any business users can benefit from this CDN but note that this is not much cheap. But you can access the most important features of this CDN that is secured with its primary plans. You don’t need to have any advanced knowledge to work with its console, because it has a user-friendly interface.
17- Incapsula
It has the same function as Cloudflare and provides you with high security. Incapsula has a global data center in 44 different locations. It enables you to keep your own nameservers and also offers you a web application firewall as in load balancing services. This option will protect your content from any attacks.
18- Jetpac Image CDN
If you have a WordPress website or a gallery and need for CDN to support your images fast loading, Jetpack Image CDN would be a great option. Note that it doesn’t support any other types of content.
This CDN is accessible for free and you can activate it within the WordPress Jetpack plugin and just check its box. After that, all of your images will be delivered via WordPress servers.
19- Akamai
Akamai is another popular and powerful CDN provider with more than 240,000 data centers around the globe. It has an incredible content delivery speed which improves your website loading time. Akamai services have high reliability and great performance. With this CDN, you don’t need to worry about your website security, since it is always monitoring all the servers to counteract any attacks. Also, you will have access to a real-time report of your website performance.
20- Uploadcare CDN
This is a powerful CDN for storage and uploading files on a website or app. You can directly upload content from any resources such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Instagram and through the web. It storages the contents and provide a backup file to improve the security of each content. It flexibly serves images to fit it with a website or a mobile application.
21- Alibaba Cloud CDN
Alibaba Cloud CDN provides you with a cloud computing system which can support any online businesses such as e-commerce store with huge storage. It is equipped with powerful Anti-DDos protection and big-data processing services.
22- jsdelivr
This is one of the best CDN services which serves free plans for every open-source project. Jsdelivr is so popular for its serving files system. It can deliver web files Github repositories without needs for any configuration.
23- BelugaCDN
BelugaCDN acts something similar to Amazon and MaxCDN which provides you with a content delivery network to transfer content such as images and videos.
It is one of the best services at the lowest cost.
24- BootstrapCDN
BootstrapCDN is a public CDN in order to load code files such as CSS and Js and also images from its servers throughout the world. It has a global data center that hosts more than 7.9 million websites.
It will improve your website performance and load time by delivering content from the nearest server to each user.
25- BunnyCDN
BunnyCDN is one another content delivery network with low prices and the pay-as-you-go system. It will provide you with free SSL to enhance your website’s security. It has also a powerful system with a high speed to improve each content delivery time.
26- Hostry Free CDN
If you have recently launched your website as a beginner or have a new startup, Hostly CDN is a great option for you as a content delivery network. It offers free plans which save you more money and then a pay-as-you-go system for other plans. It has a global point of presence in more than 47 locations in the world.
27- CLoudinary
If you need to upload and store a large number of images and videos, you need a speedy content delivery network to do this task in no time. Cloudinary is an optimized CDN which improves your content delivery performance. It provides you with some features to edit, crop, resize, apply effects and many other features automatically.
You understood that what is CDN in this article and become more familiar with the most popular CDN services.
There are many steps to start your online business and to improve it. Since you have your domain registration and choose your
WordPress hosting or server hosting service, you passed the basic steps of a business. But by improving and growing your website you can choose one of these CDN services which meet your needs.
