On any website, there is a fair amount of "heavy" static content: JavaScript libraries, CSS, graphic images, and all sorts of binary files ... The storage and distribution of this content always entail certain problems: we have already written about all this and told how there can be solved with our cloud storage.
Difficulties with the distribution of statics increase with the growth of site traffic. The load on the server grows, the load time of pages increases, and users experience more inconveniences. The geographical factor plays a huge role: the further the user is from the server on which the site is hosted, the slower it works.
Geographical distance from end users hinders the development of many web projects and the expansion of their audience. In many regions of the world, there is still no possibility of a high-speed Internet connection. Meanwhile, the share of "heavy" content on the Internet is growing, and the low speed of its delivery in modern conditions is unacceptable.
Today we are ready to help our customers to overcome distances and ensure the delivery of static content at the maximum speed.
It would seem that 4 seconds is very little. But according to statistics, if a web page is loaded for at least several milliseconds longer than this time, users leave it - and never return. For commercial web projects, an extra second can result in financial losses.
Search engines favor fast-working sites. First, the speed of loading pages is considered in the ranking formulas. Secondly, users, who leave a slow-loading page, reduce their "weight" for search engines. A slow-working site is unlikely to be popular. Practice shows that the speed of work significantly increases the attractiveness of web services for visitors.
The slow download speed of the site significantly reduces the effectiveness of contextual and banner advertising. If visitors come to the ad, but at the same time, the full load of the site does not wait, it means that the money invested in advertising is wasted: the user does not see what he should see.
The above examples more than convincingly indicate that the slow download speed of the site naturally entails serious problems.
Of course, the Internet is becoming faster and cheaper every day, but the inconveniences associated with the abundance of "heavy" content and slow download speeds, still do not disappear anywhere. Many sites, rich in graphics and animation, with great difficulty, open from mobile devices if the connection is via a 3G network.
Using CDN, you can solve all the problems described above and make it so that the site can be downloaded quickly from anywhere in the world.
CDN is a geographically distributed network consisting of a main node and cracks, which are points of presence in different parts of the world. All the "heaviest elements" of the site are cached on them. When accessing the main server, the user will be redirected to the nearest point of presence. Due to this, the network route between servers is reduced, and the site is faster from the user's point of view.
The benefits received by site owners through the use of CDN are quite obvious:
Increase the speed of delivery of content. A user from anywhere in the world can receive content on the optimal network route for the minimum amount of time and from the nearest point;
Reduces the load on the main server; all the heavy content users will download from the caching servers, so the load on the main server will significantly decrease. The information stored on it will only need to be kept up-to-date;
Reducing the cost of infrastructure development. Using CDN saves you considerably on infrastructure development (caching servers distribute all "heavy" information, and you do not need to purchase additional equipment for its storage and distribution).
Many customers use the storage to share files with friends and colleagues. As a rule, these are large files: for example, photos, audio and video recordings, and typographic models. Thanks to CDN, these files can be downloaded quickly from anywhere worldwide.
I measured the speed of loading the site's main page by the service webpagetest.org several times, sometimes, I checked the results with service monitis.com, and the DNS update checked whatsmydns.net. Remember that the site's download speed without CDN in Los Angeles was 9.2 seconds. When configuring MaxCDN and KeyCDN, I installed and configured the WordPress W3 Total Cache plugin, which also increased speed. As a result, I got such results (in parentheses, the percent increase in speed is indicated):
"Naked" website - 9.2 seconds.
W3 Total Cache (without CDN) - 6.9 seconds ( + 25% )
MaxCDN - 5.9 seconds (+ 36%, since 25% gave W3TC, then we get an increase of 11%)
CloudFlare - 7.5 seconds
KeyCDN - 4.2 sec (+ 54%, since 25% gave W3TC, then we get a gain of 29%)
Thus, the most strongly (29%) accelerates the site KeyCDN, in second place CloudFlare (-18%) and worst of all MaxCDN (-11%). And a very good speed increase (-25%) gives free plug-in WordPress W3 Total Cache!
About the bottom of the most popular CDN systems for business, tariff plans from $ 39.95 per year for the first terabyte of bandwidth. It is easy to integrate with WordPress (manual - wplift.com/using-w3-total-cache-plugin-with-a-cdn) and Joomla, Drupal, etc. After the first year of use, the price increases to $ 99 / year for terabytes. MaxCDN is the brand of NetDNA, one of the leaders in the distributed content delivery industry. He works with individual clients, while NetDNA serves business and legal entities long-term.
Clients: WPEngine, TheNextWeb, and StackOverflow.
Prices, of course, at the time of writing; To check the relevance, click the CDN below and go to the page with current prices.
Price for 1 GB: up to 100 GB - $ 0.09; the price is gradually decreasing and at a volume of 150 Tb - $ 0.04
Minimum payment: $ 9 per month (in the tariff plan, $ 9 included 100 GB)
Supplement for Australia and Asia: $ 15 per month.
Price for 1 GB: $ 0.04 (any volumes!)
Minimum payment: no such, pay, how much traffic was spent
Supplement for Australia and Asia: free of charge.
Price for 1 GB: no
Minimum payment: one site for free with limited functionality (there are tariff plans for $ 20 and $ 200 per month)
Supplement for Australia and Asia: no.
On the question of which CDN is better, we cannot answer since my research is neither complete nor objective enough. Still, I chose KeyCDN because it is many times faster and cheaper than MaxCDN, and if I needed a free CDN, I would choose CloudFlare. And I would not forget about the free plugin WordPress W3 Total Cache.
