What is a CDN and when you need one

A CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a network of servers around the world that keep copies of your content and serve them to visitors from the nearest point.

How it works

Without a CDN, a visitor in the US loads the site directly from your server in Europe, with higher latency. With a CDN, they get the static files from a nearby server, much faster.

What a CDN speeds up

• Images, CSS, JavaScript and other static files.
• Downloadable files and media.
• Cacheable pages (content that does not change often).

When you need one

• You have visitors from several countries or continents.
• You serve many images or large files.
• You want to reduce load and traffic on the main server.

How to start simply

The easiest path is Cloudflare, which includes a free CDN when you enable proxy mode, see How to use Cloudflare.

CDN vs a bigger server

A CDN helps with static content and geographic distribution. For heavy dynamic apps you still need a powerful server, see the plans.