For this article, we have decided to compile a list of the best CDN providers for your website. But what’s a CDN you might ask? CDN stands for Content Delivery Network and refers to a geographical network of proxy servers whose goal is to deliver content as quickly as possible.
Using a CDN provider will help you improve the performance of your website, and that is why you should be focusing on finding the right and the best CDN to incorporate on your WordPress website.
This is where this article will be able to assist you as we have collected the best CDN providers and narrowed them down to only the most professional providers. But what are the best CDN providers for WordPress?
Check out who made our list. But before we get into the collection of what are the best CDN providers for WordPress, we will shortly explain what a CDN is and how does CDN works. Let’s get going.
How does a CDN work?
To put this simply, a CDN is a network of services and data centers in a lot of different geographical locations, what this does is connect the visitor of your website with the nearest network, thus minimizing the distance your visitors and your website’s origin server and having your website load faster.
When using shared hosting, all your files and shared in a certain geographical data center, let’s say USA, and if the user is far from that location, it can take a lot of time for the site to load. Thus having the best CDN for WordPress on your website will reduce the loading time, and improve your site’s performance.
Keep in mind that your website’s speed and performance is an important SEO ranking factor, that is why is often advised that you, as a website owner find the best CDN provider for the occasion.
So how does a CDN works? Usually these content delivery networks caches static pages of your website and stores them on multiple servers in various locations, and when users request to load a page on your website, a CDN will redirect the request to the nearest server.
This reduces the loading time and makes your website faster, and this way providing a better user-experience. Now that we have got the basics covered, let’s take a look on the best CDN providers for WordPress to help you make the right choice for your website.
We will start the list with StackPath, a highly popular and one of the best CDN providers that offers both content delivery and security services. StackPath is one of the best CDN providers that not only delivers content at amazing speed by having worldwide edge locations, it also provides content protection and asset optimization.
You can give users fast and reliable content delivery with StackPath as it allows the download of software and game installers, HD and 4K video, and more. StackPath comes with an easy installation process as well as built-in analytics on important CDN, content, and origin performance variables
StackPath will also take care of the security of your website to protect your content and operation this includes DDoS attack mitigation, SSL, a private network backbone. On top of that, StackPath offers an included Edge SSL certificate that servers our certificate from edge locations, thus reducing the performance costs of SSL encryption.
PROS
- Content Protection features to reduce malicious activity
- Free SSL certificate included
- Built-in analytics and reports
- Large file delivery and unlimited file sizes
- Multiple servers across the world for better content delivery
- Asset optimization including GZIP compression, large file segmentation, canonical header insertion.
CONS
- It does not provide a free plan, although they offer a 1-month free trial. Their pricing plans start from $20 per month.
Cloudflare is one of the best CDN providers for WordPress and more that also offers a free plan. Cloudflare is highly popular among small businesses as it provides basic CDN services, free SSL certificate as well as DDoS protection. Cloudflare runs multiple edge networks that transmit static and dynamic content delivery at an excellent speed.
The Cloudflare network will give your granular control over your content optimization and how your content is cached as well as specify particular behavior for individual URLs. Cloudflare comes with a profuse ecosystem of content delivery and security services that increases and improves the performance of your website.
Besides having a free plan, for increased performance and functionality Cloudflare offers three premium plans each of which contains its intrinsic features. The Pro plan comes for $20 per month and offers features like unrestricted mitigation of DDoS attacks, free SSL certificate, Web Application Firewall, and more.
PROS
- Web Application Firewall to protect your website from malicious activity
- Free shared SSL certificate from Cloudflare
- Extensive global network of data centers
- Cloudflare provides fast video delivery with shorter video startup times and reduced buffering
- Support for the latest generation of the protocol of HTTP3/
- The ability to see the customer IP addresses and not Cloudflare’s
- Customizable cache expiration periods (TTL)
CONS
- The free plan offers limited security services thus you would need to upgrade to a paid plan to get DDoS attack protection, malware, or spam.
- Limited stats and analytics
Amazon CloudFront is another amazing CDN provider for WordPress as well as other platforms that offers top-notch content delivery services. CloudFront made our list of the best CDN providers due to its feature-rich package, fast performance, and inclusion of the most advanced security capabilities.
Amazon CloudFront works upon the AWS Backbone that provides fast content delivery due to its massive and global distribution, covering more than 225+ points of presence (PoPs). Cloudfront is one of the best CND providers and caches different types of content such as videos, images, data, APIs, and more and thus retrieving a faster response approach.
Content is stored in CloudFront’s edge and regional network caches and will only be extracted from the origin when needed, helping you reduce traffic from the origin and aims to increase the availability of your applications.
Amazon CloudFront will offer a multilayered security service including Amazon CloudFront, AWS Shield, AWS Web Application Firewall (WAF), and Amazon Route 53, all of which work seamlessly with to protect your website from malware attacks and activity.
PROS
- Reduced origin application requests
- Full-featured APIs and developers tools create, configure, and maintain CloudFront distributions
- DDoS protection via AWS Shield
- SSL/TLS Encryptions as well as HTTPS
- Take control over how CloudFront caches, processed your request, and what features are included
- Integration with Amazon CloudWatch that provides real-time metrics and analytics displayed in a set of graphs in the CloudFront console
- Support for multiple origins when the primary origin is not available
- Restricted access only to authorized users
- Amazon CloudFront uses a global network of 225+ Points of Presence
CONS
- Amazon CloudFront offers bountiful and robust features but has a steeper learning curve, it can be difficult for beginners to use.
- High-cost at scale, meaning, as your traffics grows the cost of CloudFront increased rapidly due to the pay-per-use pricing.
- Unfortunately, CloudFront interface lacks intuitivity.
We’ve made sure to include another free CDN to our best CDN providers list and this time we will talk about NitroPack. The free version of NitroPack offers basic CDN services for one website only including, 5,000 page views per month, 1 GB CDN bandwidth per month, as well as basic support.
NitroPack is not just a simple CDN provider, it an all-in-one-optimization tool that offers features like code modification, Gzip or Brotli compression, image optimization, lazy loading for images and videos, and more. Besides the free version of NitroPack, the provider comes with three other plans that offer high-end functionality of content delivery service.
NitroPack offers a simple and straightforward interface, meaning it easily accessible to all users, and if you are using WordPress as your CMS, then simply install it just like you install any other plugin in WordPress and start optimizing your content with NitroPack.
PROS
- Simple and easy-to-use interface, also the setup process is quite simple
- Offers capabilities as an all-in-one content optimization tool
- Complete image optimization
- Premium plans of NitroPack include premium support to help with all the general and technical issues on your website
- Optimized content is always served to users even when changes are being made
- HTTP/2 Compatability
- Built-in browser caching system so important resources are transferred only once
CONS
- If you just need a CDN provider to serve users at maximum speed, NitroPakc is an arbitrary choice.
- Can affect scripts, and sometimes it is not immediately obvious
We will continue our collection with Sucuri, one of the best CDN providers for WordPress websites. Sucuri provides professional and top-notch security, as well as unmatched content delivery services that reach the peak of your site’s performance. Sucuri will offer multiple caching options that are available for every type of website.
The multiple data center around the world will help reach high-speed performance on your website. Sucuri as being one of the best CDN providers will also provide you with three types of caching systems that give your granular control over the coaching system designed to meet the needs of every website.
Sucuri is a free WordPress plugin in the WordPress repository that will help you keep your website safe and protect it from misfortunate events and malware functions. But Sucuri also offers premium plans as a CDN provider starting from $199.99 per year and offers highly advanced security features, SSL support, and top-notch CDN performance.
PROS
- High-performance servers and top-notch website security
- Fast response time from the professional team of Sucuri
- Use the smart caching options to optimize your site’s speed
- A global network of servers
- High availability and redundancy in case of server failure
- Website malware protection and SEO spam scanner
- Inclusion of SSL certificate monitoring
- Reliable website uptime
CONS
- Functions are limited in terms with the other CDN providers we included in the collection
- Pricing is a bit high for small businesses as they only provide yearly plans.
KeyCDN is among the best CDN providers and offers feature-packed high-end tools to provide speed-light fast content delivery to end-users. Also, this CDN provider comes with protection against malware occasions and DDoS attacks under its sleeve. They provide geographically spread data servers across North America, Asia, Europe, and Pacific regions.
With KeyCDN as one of the best CDN providers, you will have full control over your account from where you can add, edit and configure regional zones for maximum performance. You will also be presented with full reports and analytics for traffic details as well as access account, all in real-time.
KeyCDN provides a simple and straightforward interface that you can easily get the hang of it. You can effortlessly add to any CMS, framework, or custom application. KeyCDN uses a pay as you go plan, meaning you will only pay for what you use.
PROS
- DDoS protection and two-factor authentication
- Free and custom SSL certificate
- Configure and optimize your account to meet the needs of your webste
- Detailed reports on how the content is being delivered
- Flexible performance with a wide range of options to make sure content is delivered fast
- Integrate KeyCDN with any other application, DMS, or framework
- Professional customer support 24/7
- HTTP/2 and Restful API support
CONS
- Does not provide a free plan.
- Does not provide an ample of security features when compared to other CDN providers on the list
Fastly will help you build excellent-performing websites and keep the pace of your digital business using the most robust and advanced features included in the platform. Fastly is a cloud-based CDN platform that’s spread across multiple edge locations for the ultimate speed in content delivery. This powerful content delivery platform uses fewer PoPs than its competitors, this way it delivers content more quickly to the global user.
Since the entire platform is focused more on PoPs, it is able to cache content for longer periods of time, this way requiring fewer instances of calling your servers. Fastly provides secure HTTP that protects your customer’s data, provides credibility against your brand, and protects the integrity of your business, all in one place.
Fastly’s power strength is how configurable the platform is. One good example is video caching, It can deliver any HTTP-based media streaming protocol, including Apple’s HLS, Adobe’s HDS, and MPEG-DASH. Security is another amazing component that makes Fastly one of the best in their niche, by providing support for encryption, DRM, and secure tokens
PROS
- Delivers content at a high-speed rate, making it a favorite CDN platform
- Highly configurable service
- Access to API for better optimization
- Extensive customer support, here including comprehensive documentation
- Real-time logs
- Fully integrable with all kinds of platforms
- 55+ PoPs powered by edge servers
CONS
- Might be confusing for beginners
- High SSL prices if you want to make your website more secure
Rackspace is one of the best CDN providers for eCommerce stores that offer top-notch content delivery speed. Rackspace is the perfect CDN provider for online stores due to its high configurability and integration with various eCommerce platforms like Magento, Oracle, SAP Hybris, and Broadleaf. You can fully unlock the power of Rackspace that offers a modern CDN application and a contemporary architecture allowing you unlimited access to the cloud.
Rackspace is a quite popular and well-known cloud-based solution and hosting provider with a solid CDN platform that sits on top of advanced infrastructure. Rackspace offers tons of amazing features which sometimes can make it harder and confusing for novices to use the platform.
The professional team of Rackspace will help you migrate from your current CDN provider to Rackspace and providing for you successful assessment and strategies that work best for your business. Best of all is that Rackspace works in perfect coordination with WordPress and with all the most popular WordPress plugins.
PROS
- A powerful support system to always help you set up the platform either via phone, email, or their online portal
- Akamai, Cyberduck, Jungle Disk, and FireUploader integrations
- Free SSL certificate to keep your users’ data always secure
- Multiple Integration
- Advanced infrastructure to create powerful online stores
- Fully managed CDN service provider
- Works perfectly well with all the popular content management systems
- Support for third-party hosting
CONS
- Only 13 data centers worldwide
- Their tool usage can be a bit confusing for beginners
- Not the cheapest CDN provider
Akamai stands behind its reputable notoriety as being the oldest CDN provider and still offers top-notch services specializing in cybersecurity. Akamai consists of an impressive network of servers, it has over 275,000 servers located in over 130 countries. What makes Akamai one of the best CDN services are the bountiful inclusion of powerful features, amazing customer support, and the diverse number of customization options.
Akamai is built upon an intuitive, yet complex admin dashboard that best caters to professionals and experts on the field. Nevertheless, Akamai offers tons of powerful customization tools to optimize for the best website performance. This CDN delivers support for various media-based products for businesses that serve digital content like news. videos, games, high-quality videos, social media, and more.
Akamai has the largest share of content delivery serving up to 30% of the internet traffic. Akamai is most commonly used for large businesses and enterprises due to its high price tag. Akamai provides tons of advanced features and its performance is among the best.
PROS
- Large CDN coverage, in over 135 countries
- Cloud security including DDoS protection
- Professional customer support 24/7
- Akamai remaining the leading company in website security, by providing web application firewall, DDoS and API protection.
- The best solution for enterprise-grande businesses
- Dynamic site accelerator
- Provides dedicated support against DDoS attacks
- Integration with content management systems
CONS
- Quite pricey, especially for small-sized businesses
- Very developer-oriented
CDNetworks focuses its efforts in areas of the world with limited or restricted internet access such as the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, Russia, and China. CDNetworks is a secure content delivery network that offers flexibility, ensures ultra-low latency and high bandwidth/performance computing. This CDN provider will also provide a comprehensive cloud-based DDoS protection service in a last and effective manner against DDoS attacks.
CDNetworks does provide security features such as bot blocking, DDoS mitigation, and WAF. This makes it a great CDN solution for any type of website or any niche. One of the best features that make this CDN reputable is the website performance enhancement department.
It is the highest performing global content delivery network (CDN), providing websites with the best performance, security, and reliability. CDNetworks is a full-service CDN that gives network infrastructure, technology, and customer services for the delivery of Internet applications and content. their Web Performance Suite has been purpose-created to deliver website applications and content with maximum availability and performance anywhere in the world.
PROS
- Amazing performance offering closer content to customers and improving user-experience
- CDNetwors offers fine-grained control over the CDN traffic process flow
- Provides protection from a wide array of attacks
- CDN Pro gives full visibility and insights over traffic and statistics
- Full-featured APIs
- Built-in DDoS Protection
- Over 100 Points of Presence (PoPs) and Terabit-level bandwidth capacities
- Gives you control over the CDN traffic flow, manipulates HTTP headers, and more.
CONS
- Limited configurability
Final Thoughts
We have finally arrived at the conclusion of this article trying to weigh all the pros and cons of the best CDN provides for your website. We have briefly given a description of each provider and their strongest assets, depending on the needs of your website, you shall make the right choice by weighting down what features you need and what you don’t based on the purpose and niche of your website.
Our top picks for the best CDN providers are StackPath for all types of websites and businesses, Cloudflare and CloudFront are the best CDN providers for large business that need a large capacity of assets and features. If you need a simple WordPress plugin that will in the mean time keep your website secure and provide basic CDN services the Sucuri will be the right choice for you. Search through our collection to make the decision on what is the best CDN provider from your site based on our list.
