Are you someone who features more images and videos on your website? If yes, it may be a good idea to use a content delivery network (CDN).
A CDN basically helps you to serve static content from their network and deliver it to your website from the geographically nearest server. Faster page loading and enhanced user experience are the outcomes of using a content delivery network. For instance, if your site is stored on servers in the US and visitors are accessing your website from India, they won’t need to wait for long as the content of the page will not be loaded from the US server but from another server that is located nearest to the visitors.
CDN not only benefits users by allowing them to access websites faster but website owners too. If you are running a website, you may be well aware of the fact that slow website loading speed is a key factor that affects visitor engagement and retention.
Whether you have a high-performing eCommerce website or a small blogging website, using a CDN can prove advantageous for you. Also, if you are running a WordPress website, integrating a CDN will be extra smooth and convenient.
Advantages of CDN
Here are some of the key advantages of using CDN:
- Highly secure and scalable
- Ensure better website uptime
- Improves website load speed
- Decreases load on your website servers
Best CDN Service Providers
Now, let’s have a look at some of the best CDN service providers out there:
1. StackPath CDN
StackPath is a content delivery network ideal for both experienced developers and beginners. The simple setup process, plenty of features, and transparent pricing structure make it the best choice for businesses of all sizes.
The cloud-based platform ensures advanced security of all its services with DDoS mitigation technologies. You can select from a Domain Name System, CDN only package, and various Edge Delivery Bundles with Web Application Firewall (WAF).
2. Google Cloud CDN
The CDN offered by Google Cloud can be integrated with other Google Cloud products, which enables you to get a complete range of services under a single roof. However, you need to be a little considerate of their cost structure.
The Google Cloud Platform offers a complete range of cloud products such as web hosting, storage, and AI & machine learning capabilities.
Also, this CDN is quite popular with well-renowned industry experts, to name a few, Twitter, FedEx, Spotify, etc. The important features of Google Cloud CDN include IPv6 support, DDoS protection, signed cookies and URLs, Google managed SSL and logging, etc.
3. Imperva
If you are looking for a complete website security package with a global CDN service, Imperva can be the best solution for you. It can cater to both static and dynamic content and can also meet your unique requirements.
Imperva offers promising features when it comes to securing applications and data. Apart from CDN, you can also opt for other services including web application firewall (WAF), attack analytics, API security, bot management, and runtime application self-protection.
Also, you will get access to a cloud security console for an overview of the security events on your website.
4. Akamai
It is amongst the first service providers to offer comprehensive CDN services. The Akamai CDN serves approximately 30% of the global internet traffic. It also offers cloud and cybersecurity services to clients located anywhere in the world.
Akamai gives access to its advanced set of features with its paid service. Some of the prime features of the Akamai CDN service are quick purge, HTTP/2 and IPv6 support, DDoS protection, custom rules, and free shared SSL. For a custom SSL certificate, you need to pay an additional amount.
The CDN service provider offers 24/7 customer support and lives chat service to help you with all your queries.
5. Sucuri
Sucuri is website security and CDN service provider that offers robust CDN, which is ideal for firms hosting a single website. All of its plans come with malware removal and security monitoring to keep your website completely safe and secure.
The setup of the Sucuri CDN platform is a simple and straightforward task. Some of the key features of Sucuri are DDoS protection, HTTP/2, Anycast network, and SSL support.
Sucuri has a 24/7 ticketing system to ensure great customer support. However, it lacks customer support via chat and email.
6. Rackspace CDN
Rackspace’s CDN is capable of providing static and dynamic content to your website users. The portfolio of this CDN includes websites, web apps, and e-commerce websites. The installation of Rackspace CDN happens fast through its control panel, which itself is quite interactive.
The important features of the CDN services offered by Rackspace include DDoS mitigation, shared SSL, custom caching rules, and purging options. Rackspace also supports content time to live that allows you to set a time period for which the content is cached.
This CDN service also provides round-the-clock customer support via email and phone so users can get all the required help at their convenience.
7. NitroPack
NitroPack is a website optimization service that connects your website to Amazon CloudFront CDN. The platform focuses mostly on enhancing your website speed to enhance its Google PageSpeed insights score.
The key features of NitroPack include built-in CDN, minification and compression of HTML, CSS, and JS files, simple and effective caching, font and image optimization with lazy loading, and more.
8. KeyCDN
KeyCDN is a dedicated CDN service that provides a network powered by edge servers. It is indeed, one of the best and fastest content delivery networks. You can just simply integrate it to your WordPress site using the CDN Enabler plugin.
KeyCDN consists of some important features such as built-in DDoS protection, simple caching with quick purging, and Brotli compression.
The KeyCDN also employs DDoS protection in its infrastructure but suggests you integrate your account with Sucuri to allow a WAF (web application firewall).
9. Fastly
Fastly company has designed its network to offer better performance to international users while using lesser PoPs as compared to its competitors. This CDN can cache your content for a longer period of time because it does not need many instances of calling upon the original server.
The outstanding features of Fastly include load balancing which redirects traffic to the fastest routes, web access firewall, bot protection, image optimization, and DDoS protection.
The pricing of CDN totally depends on the usage of bandwidth, the sum of requests you get, and the areas you serve.
10. CDN77
CDN77 service takes pride in encrypting your data through IPSec and TLS and provides DDoS protection. It boasts a speed of 30TB+ per second and its network has a presence in 30 countries across 6 continents.
With CDN77, you have total control over how your content is delivered since you can enable or disable any data center using its control panel. The platform also makes it easy for you to focus on your target audience.
Interesting features of CDN77 include a good network, 24/7 live support, free trial, DDoS protection in all plans, and TLS encryption.
Conclusion
We hope that the round-up of CDN service providers in this article will help you choose the right one for your business. While all CDNs have two things in common i.e. reliability and top-notch performance, they are bound to offer an intuitive user experience to your visitors that are spread globally.