What is the Content Delivery Network (CDN)?

Elasticsearch Server Open Without a Password

The right Content Delivery Network (CDN) may be a time-consuming process that needs a great deal of study. CDN provider provides a specific set of features that vary in terms of price and network infrastructure. Cybers Guards reviews is your one-stop medium where you can get all the information you need about some of the most popular networks for content delivery networks. Every CDN analysis provides:

    • Complete details about the company
    • Their CDN Networks/Infrastructure
    • Features they offer and
    • Price details

There are several CDN providers available online, if you have some vendors in mind, feel free to check our reviews to gain knowledge about the CDN service provider.

What is a CDN exactly?

A CDN is a network of global servers that aims to speed up the distribution of your static web properties. Most CDNs concentrate mainly on optimizing your static assets because they don’t shift very frequently. Moreover, as most websites contain about 80 percent of static assets (e.g., JS, CSS, images, etc.), this takes a massive amount off the original server and enhances assets worldwide.

cdn - list

Nevertheless, CDN providers vary in terms of their supporting services, a network of PoPs they have, and pricing. This is why CDN reviews plan to provide you with detailed reviews of some of the most successful CDN providers to help you make decisions.

For a variety of factors, why should you use a CDN is advantageous. If you are running a small blog or a company website, a fast-loading platform should be your highest priority. Indeed, according to Kissmetrics, almost half website users plan to load a website in 2 seconds or less and are likely to abandon a site not loaded in 3 seconds. This leads to sales loss, higher levels of bounce, and poor user experience.

Speed increases are not, however, the only advantage of a CDN.

Many others include enhanced security,

  • improved reliability
  • enhanced scalability
  • better conversion rates and more.

CDN Reviews List

See the list of CDN reviews below for more information on each provider.

 

keycdn-review

cloudflare-review

CDN Provider Overview

If you are new to the CDN environment and you do not know which provider you should begin to look at, here are a couple of things to consider. The following highlights essential categories of CDNs with each category of CDN providers. Therefore, if a certain category is relevant for you, check the providers’ CDN reviews in that category.

Low PricingCDN + WAFFeature-RichPerformance
Check the following reviews for low-priced CDN providers that are convenient for both small and large websites.See the following reports for CDN Providers, which also have a Web Application Firewall (WAF).If you are searching for a CDN provider with a high degree of customizability, check out the following reviews.Check for a CDN that supports HTTP/2, has POPs, and high reliability in regions where your visitors are based.

KeyCDN

Cloudflare

KeyCDN

Akamai

MaxCDN

IncapsulaMaxCDN

Fastly

CDNsun

MaxCDNAkamai

KeyCDN

Cloudflare

 

Within the above list, several CDN providers give free trials. They typically range from 14 to 30 days of court. A certain amount of free bandwidth is offered to check the CDN solution thoroughly and to decide if they are the right option for you. It is also recommended that you use the free trial of a CDN service wherever possible. It not only gives you more insight into what the CDN provides, but it also allows you the ability to compare various CDN providers.

CDN Benefits

The use of a CDN has many benefits and drawbacks. Whether you are a visitor to a website or a website user, CDNs support all parties. This page is an excellent place to begin learning about the CDN advantages, if new to the CDN environment, and how it can help you boost your overall web content provision.

1. Speed

Speed is Content Distribution Networks’ first and most debated benefit. This is for good reasons as speed is becoming more and more important both for website owners and visitors. When more and more Internet users switch to mobile devices, websites need to change their way of distributing information to prevent users from waiting.

Through storing network assets on CDN edge servers worldwide, users are routed to the nearest CDN node rather than to a single source site. This, in effect, results in less distance between the requirement of the user and the server response to fly, which decreases latency and speeds of loading.

2. Reliability

Content distribution networks help to improve stability through CDN-based redundancy mechanisms. For instance, if the CDN edge server fails by accident, all traffic will be redirected to the next edge server without interruption by the CDN provider.

Moreover, if your home server goes offline, certain CDN providers can continue to offer stale content. Depending on the time you have set in the Expires header, the CDN will keep supplying visitors with cache content until the Expire value has been depleted or the cache is purged.

3. Security

The essential benefit of CDN is enhanced security. Most CDNs add an extra DDoS layer, evil bots, etc. Some can handle the safety factor entirely in the background, depending on the company you select, while others can adjust and configure the security settings.

With the number and frequency of DDoS attacks continuing to rise, robust security measures for the protection of your website should be a top priority. It is a fast, comparatively, economical, and efficient way to introduce CDN.

4. Scalability

There are several ways to get viral today, and you never really know when anything will take off on your website. Therefore, it is essential to be ready and have the infrastructure in place to quantify the web assets if necessary. Content Delivery Networks are mighty in terms of scalability because they store the web properties, and therefore new visitors access content via CDN in place of the root. If your server of origin is not too secure, this is particularly important.

Selecting a reliable, high-performance CDN provider is critical because you want to ensure that you can handle the spike in traffic on your site.

5. Decreases Origin Server Load

This benefit is connected to # 4 above. Websites consist of an average of around 80% of static material. Since CDNs cache and provide static content, your original server can take an enormous amount off. Therefore, if you do not wish to update the specifics of your original server, but remember that you are at your max, CDN implementation will help to decrease the load.

In comparison, CDN bandwidth is often cheaper than the conventional bandwidth of a hosting service. While determining if your original server is upgraded or CDN is incorporated, always seek to integrate the CDN first to reduce costs while enhancing overall performance.

Mark Funk
Mark Funk is an experienced information security specialist who works with enterprises to mature and improve their enterprise security programs. Previously, he worked as a security news reporter.