In the modern internet defined world, speed is crucial. Combine it with a good user experience and you’ll have visitors flocking to your website. People are turning less and less patient by the day and they don’t want to wait even for one extra second.
It is hence very important for modern websites to be as fast as possible. This is where the concept of CDN or Content Delivery Network comes into the picture. So here’s the important question:
What is CDN and why should you bother about it?
The primary reason for using the internet is the freedom to access its services from any part of the world. But even though the internet seems like a global service, every website which is present on the internet has to be hosted somewhere (in some datacenter) from where they can be accessed. Now, accessing them from an area which is very far from that datacenter can result in a minor delay as opposed to accessing something which is nearby.
This is where CDN steps in. It is a network of servers which are located in various centers around the world. The CDN has a static copy of your website on their servers and whenever someone makes a request for your website, the content is delivered from the nearest local server. This procedure significantly improves the ‘Page Load Time’ of websites, thereby enhancing its overall performance.
Hence, for an enhanced and superfast user experience, you should definitely consider using one of the several CDN services present for WordPress. We will discuss some of the best ones here:
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CloudFlare
Regarded as the best free CDN service for WordPress, CloudFlare is very famous among tens of thousands of users. Especially preferred by the beginners and the ones using CDN for the first time, it provides a lot of functionalities in its free version.
CloudFlare has more than 100Data Centers around the world which enables it to speed up your website irrespective of the visitor’s location. Considered one of the easiest CDN service to implement, it also has premium plans which promise even more performance and security from various threats.
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MaxCDN (now StackPath)
This is called arguably the best CDN service provider. Consisting of high speed and powerful SSD servers, they are considered market experts in this segment. They have their servers present in all the major locations around the world and are known for their secure service which prevents various malicious attacks on websites.
They work pretty smoothly with services like WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache. Also, they are pretty easy to implement and come with a user-friendly control panel to handle things. This is definitely the most reliable, safe and fast CDN service provider in the market.
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KeyCDN
KeyCDN is a premium CDN service and one of the better options for WordPress websites. It has many features which are similar to MaxCDN, but this has the advantage of being a cheaper service.
Equipped with SSD optimized servers present all around the world, KeyCDN focuses on providing the best performance. Also containing a well-designed dashboard, real-time reporting, and excellent security features, this is one of the best CDN services in the market.
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Incapsula
Incapsula comes with a free base plan which is upgradable at affordable prices and is hence considered one of the best CDN services for personal bloggers. They have their servers present in USA, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
Incapsula claims that websites using Incapsula are 50% faster and consume 70% less bandwidth. This is basically because of their dynamic caching technology based on Machine Learning, extensive cache control options, various security features, etc.
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Rackspace
Rackspace is a paid service and follows ‘pay-as-you-go’ policy. Mainly famous for its name in cloud computing and enterprise-level cloud solutions, Rackspace provides CDN service too. Their services can be checked here.
They provide online object storage for files and media and the price for first TB is $0.10/GB/MO. They claim that their service is fast, reliable and easy to use.
It should be kept in mind that Rackspace can be slightly tricky to set up for your website, but it is a good option nonetheless.
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CDNify
CDNify is a UK based CDN provider. Focussing on user experience, CDN gives an incredibly simple interface to control your website and services. It has wonderful cache management and has SSD servers installed in various parts of the world.
This is considered one of the best CDN services for WordPress since it is very easy to set this up in a WordPress environment due to CDNify Manager. Also, this service is scalable and provides an incredibly fast experience for the users.
Apart from the ones listed above, there are some other options available too:
- CacheFly
- CDN77
- Jetpack Photon
These all CDN providers serve to increase the overall performance and speed of your websites and you should completely use them for providing an incredibly fast and smooth experience to the users of your website.
