CDN Comparison: Most Popular CDN (Statistic)

Mobile visitors to a website that takes longer than three seconds to load are more likely to abandon the page ⇱ and never look back. This makes the performance of digital content key in determining how wide a swath of the public it reaches. Speed and reliability are more than just important user experience parameters, they're also decisive in search engine rankings.

The best way to speed up your website is to make use of content delivery networks (CDNs). These server networks deliver content from regional servers to end-users, making it possible to deliver even large amounts of data.

In order to determine the most popular CDNs, we evaluated 5 million of the most-visited websites. Below, we've presented our findings.

Cloudflare ⇱, with more than 6 million linked domains, is far and away the leading CDN provider on the market. One major reason for the service's popularity is its free plan which offers all of the most important features that a CDN should, meeting the needs of most private users or amateur programmers in the process.

The provider is easy to set up, handle, and offers users with a well-arranged interface, all of which have certainly contributed to making Cloudflare a very popular allrounder among CDNs.

In addition to emphasizing performance, Cloudflare also focuses on security, offering DDoS protection and, for paying subscribers, an effective firewall. Also included are free SSL encryption and a highly versatile analytical tool.

Despite its impressive performance, Cloudflare scores lower in regard to speed, having to settle for a place in the middle of the CDNPerf ranking ⇱. As another drawback, additional features and functions are only available to paying subscribers, plans for which start at $20 per month. Services that have high requirements, like live streaming, aren't supported either.

jsDelivr ⇱ is a free public CDN for open-source content that has grown to become a favorite among developers owing to its integration of open-source developer platforms, making it the second most popular CDN from our sample. In contrast to other CDN providers, jsDelivr doesn't operate its own server network, relying instead on other CDNs like Cloudflare ⇱, Fastly ⇱, and Bunny ⇱.

Based on location and the provider's current performance, the service's algorithm presents users with the best available channel. This helps to not only guarantee fast loading times but also protects against potential service disruptions.

jsDelivr is closely linked to GitHub and npm, two open-source platforms, making it possible to transfer data in a flash and without any prior setup. Some features, like the ability to load multiple files with a single HTTP request, or version aliasing (the automatic upload of the latest version of a project) are unique amongst CDN providers.

In addition, jsDelivr is compatible with all types of files, including JavaScript libraries, jQuery plugins, and CSS Frameworks.

Amazon CloudFront ⇱ is the ecommerce giant's CDN system. As part of Amazon Web Services (AWS), it relies on Amazon's global infrastructure, through which it reliably delivers content of all sizes. CloudFront can easily be combined with other AWS apps like Amazon S3 or Amazon EC2, providing both developers and businesses with highly versatile design options.

The CDN also offers a great deal of customization, such as extremely detailed server settings. Security is highly emphasized too, thanks to the incorporation of services like AWS Shield Standard, which protects against DDoS attacks.

Anyone who has already worked with AWS will quickly find their way around CloudFront, since the interface is the same. For newcomers, the user interface can be somewhat overwhelming owing to the variety of options.

Once everything has been configured, CloudFront impresses thanks to its comprehensive analytical tools. These make it possible, for example, to set custom alarms when data limits are exceeded. As such, Amazon CloudFront is well-suited for both static, as well as more complex dynamic content, such as streaming.

CloudFront's price is calculated based on how much data is needed and per GB. The pricing structure is rather complicated and varies from target region to target region. Users can test the service for free for a year, so long as they don't exceed the (monthly) data volume of 50 GB and/or 2 million HTTP and HTTPS requests.

The market for CDNs is constantly undergoing and adapting to change. Since CDNs have become recognized as a regular tool, customer requirements for enhanced customizability and flexibility have grown. New providers, in catering to the needs of specific target groups, have staked our segments of the market, winning large numbers of clients in the process. We took a look at which CDNs have made the greatest strides from 2020 to 2021 in terms of development, as well as some of the current trends.

Netlify ⇱ is a cloud-computing company that offers hosting and serverless back-end services for web apps and static websites. Its users can create, host, and manage websites or web apps. Like jsDelivr, the company also makes it easy to integrate GitHub and GitLab content.

Founded in 2014, Netlify has experienced rapid growth, counting more than 1 million users as of the time of writing. The service is well-suited for a variety of applications, such as ecommerce sites, web apps, conference pages, global web campaigns, or even sharing documents online.

Netlify's user interface is well-arranged, making it ideal for beginners. The service's Free plan lacks some important features, so, if considering using it the Pro plan, which starts at $19 per month, is advisable.

Fastly ⇱ has been on the market for around a decade, doing enough to impress numerous Internet giants, like Shopify, Slack, or Spotify. As an edge cloud-based CDN, Fastly has the advantage of being able to update content to its newest version in real-time.

The service advertises its ability to let users program their server settings, granting complete control over how content is made available to site visitors. Other highlights include the automatic optimization of image content, protection against DDoS attacks, a firewall, and real-time logs which make it possible to quickly identity website problems.

On average, Fastly only needs 150 ms (instant purge) for cache invalidation, compared to the five seconds traditional CDNs require. Fastly also supports all content, including live streaming.

Owing to the number of options it offers, Fastly can be technically overwhelming for beginners, to say nothing of its relatively high price. Fastly offers a trial version that includes $50 worth of traffic. Paid plans are calculated based on the amount of bandwidth used, similarly to Amazon CloudFront.

Google Cloud CDN ⇱ makes use of Google's global infrastructure in order to temporarily store cloud content near to its end-user. Integrating Google services like Cloud Monitoring ⇱ and Cloud Logging ⇱ is child's play, making it easy to view analytical data.

Owing to the structure of Google's global network (servers in 180 countries) content can be kept particularly close to the end-user, minimizing loading times. According to CDNperf ⇱, Google Cloud CDN takes second place in terms of speed, only slightly behind the otherwise unimpressive 5centsCDN.

Support is less impressive. We're fairly certain that the sheer enormity of Google is almost certainly to blame for the rather sluggish response times, but still, that's no excuse.

As with CloudFront, usage costs are calculated based first on how much bandwidth is needed, divided into outgoing cache traffic, cache filling, and HTTP/HTTPS requests, and then by region.

We've summarized our findings for you in the table below:

Owing to the speed and reliability with which they make content available, CDNs are definitely here to stay. As the only provider which offers a free plan without bandwidth limits, Cloudflare will certainly continue to appeal to a wide body of users. With that said, alternatives that provide extras and additional features, or targeting specific user groups and those who want to create detailed projects, should not be ignored.

Differences between CDNs relate largely to what types of content they support, as well as the options available for customizing performance. The actual difference in speed is difficult to determine since page loading times depend on a variety of factors including location and Internet bandwidth. For most users, these differences (milliseconds) would barely be noticeable, and as such, should not figure all that much in your final decision.

In looking to the future, edge-computing appears to be the trend that CDNs need to pay close attention to. In bringing content closer to where it is needed, a great deal of freedom is gained in terms of individual adjustments. Only time will tell if the providers now contesting the market will be adapt to this development and be able to get in on the ground floor.