A content delivery network (CDN) uses a group of servers located in various different locations to deliver your site’s content in a manner that is faster and more secure.
The majority of content on the internet is currently served through the use of content delivery networks. Major sites like Netflix, Amazon and Facebook all use CDN’s to deliver their content. A CDN can also help protect your site from DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) and other common attacks.
Your CDN is not the same as your web host provider. A CDN is a service that you add to your existing web hosting to help increase the performance of your site by improving load times, reducing bandwidth, and improving overall web security.
A CDN utilizes a network of servers located in different locations worldwide to deliver content to a user from a nearby data center. With traditional hosting, all visitors connect to the site’s hosting server which is usually located in one geographical location. For many users who are located far from this location, the site will load a lot slower.
By having servers located in different areas all over the world, content delivery networks provide users with servers that are closer to their specific geographical location.
In addition, content delivery networks utlizie a wide range of other features to decrease load times including minification, file compression, load balancing, and advanced caching methods.
Cloudflare
Cloudflare is a Content Delivery Network (CDN) that is a free service. Cloudflare’s content delivery network spans the globe. It currently consists of more than 180 points of presence (PoPs) worldwide. According to Cloudflare, websites using Cloudflare load up to twice as fast and they use up to 60% less bandwidth.
StackPath
StackPath CDN offers its customers web servers equipped with lightning fast SSD drives. The service is compatible with most of the major caching plugins including W3 Total Cache and WP Super Cache.
MaxCDN recently merged with the StackPath CDN. The new combined CDN features a global network of 45 points of presence (PoPs). That’s 36 more than MaxCDN had, and all of the locations are included in every package.
KeyCDN
KeyCDN provides you with a quality content delivery networks at a fair price. All of their data centers are equipped with SSD servers and Nginx.
KeyCDN offers a wide range of advanced features such as HTTP/2 Support, Free SSL, Origin Shield, Secure Token, and real-time analytics.
Fastly
Fastly’s edge cloud platform provides one of the fastest content delivery networks on the planet. Fastly offers more than 40 “high-density” points of presence powered by Tier 1 transit, solid-state drive powered servers along with a sophisticated caching system.
This is a CDN for websites that require large amounts of bandwidth and receive high levels of traffic. However, for those with a need for a bit more power and flexibility than the other CDN’s, Fastly will provide you with one lightning fast network and a wide range of options.