To speed up a website, a blog, or any web content like videos and images, you need a great content delivery network or CDN, simply. That reduces the loading time and makes the user experience better. In the end, the speed of any website will help to get a better ranking, because Google started counting the speed, as one of the ranking factors in their algorithm.
However, there are lots of companies, and it’s not easy to find the best CDN provider, especially for people who use this technology for the first time. So, we’ll go through these popular services and select the top ten list, based on their performances, prices, speed, security, customer support, and many other technical factors. Here are the best CDN service providers with good features.
Content delivery network companies
To get a clear idea about any CDN content delivery network provider, I tested the architecture, and in many cases, it’s not all about server version, brands, and systems, but more about how the whole thing works. So, if we add the CDN security and the bandwidth all together with Pricing and support, that will take time to conclude which service is better, however, if you want to save time and money, here are the top-rated providers I tested and found the most reliable.
1. StackPath (MaxCDN previously)
This is the best content delivery network with fast servers and a big community of users, and also, webmasters from around the World. They have one of the fastest response times and flexible pricing models. StackPath (previously MaxCDN) is the best CDN for WordPress for all sites, including Joomla, Drupal, OpenCart, PrestaShop, and all the other applications.
If you have the W3 Total cache or the WP super cache plugin, this company is the perfect CDN to use. In a few clicks, the site will load faster, using powerful technologies that secure the site and make it load fast like never before.
Personally, I never found a secure CDN like this one, they use custom protection settings, to avoid unwanted access to files, and even hack the site. This service is used by popular blogs and companies like Nissan StumbleUpon, JQuery, and many others for its speed, reliability, uptime, and good customer support.
This is an affordable content delivery network provider that offers lightning-fast servers for websites, blogs, gaming platforms. Also, it’s CDN video hosting with , and optimized infrastructure. Also, they are the perfect CDN for advertising networks who need to serve their ads, at the maximum speed and security.
The Stackpath website acceleration works better, faster, and more secure than cheaper, and even cloud CDN providers. In fact, powerful image acceleration and static file compression work with full performance. That’s because of the large number of SSD servers for this fast CDN provider. Besides, the CDN load balancing distributes the traffic across multiple servers and optimizes the resources to allow any website to handle traffic spikes and never goes down for any reason.
When it comes to CDN bandwidth, this provider compresses the files effectively and combines sophisticated GZIP technologies with security and accuracy to avoid issues with server compatibility with the different versions of CSS, HTML, and Javascript. Thus, it’s a reliable CDN provider that works for all kinds of sites and apps in the United States and around the world.
For website developers and web design agencies, StackPath is the CDN for bootstrap, jquery, HTML5, and of course for Font awesome and CSS that it will be downloaded after content for optimum performance and faster loading time. Moreover, when looking for reliable live CDN, it will be the best choice when you compare the pricing to other companies with lower quality services.
The CDN integration here is easy thanks to the plugin called fastest cache, you can just follow their official guide for that. Setting up a CDN is not that hard these days, if you follow the simple step-by-step guides that the provider offers, you’ll get all the benefits of a fast website loading time.
2. Liquid Web
This is a superior quality web hosting provider, but not all people know that the company has partnered with Akamai to offer super-fast CDN service. Indeed, it’s an optimized CDN which means faster loading time and an amazing 100% uptime.
The CDN system and infrastructure guarantee speed and availability. Your visitors will get static assets from the nearest server locations. That’s what helps to improve the user experience and get a better SERP ranking at the same time. It’s one of the best CDN service providers for professionals.
To see the content delivery product, click on “services”, then “Network Services” and you will find the option.
3. Sucuri
Sucuri is one of the biggest CDN providers with a perfect combination between speed and security. It’s not easy to find advanced security protection like what they offer. At the same time, the advanced CDN acceleration system makes any website loading blazing fast.
They have a great static file acceleration system that works with full security and caching. Also, all plans come with login protection and CDN optimized with smart balance technology that handles the traffic between servers. That’s why people forget the “Errors 500” with web hosting services for the failure.
The company works with popular sites and you can signup and see what this professional CDN will look like in a real test. They offer professional and secure CDN image hosting and everything else.
This is one of the best CDN services, If you’re looking for a premium, fast, and secure CDN, this one will be your perfect choice. For $199 per year, you will save money when making your site fast and secure with malware removal, daily site scanning, advanced website Firewall WAF and more.
So, if you have large files to host or images to share, use this service, and forget the response time issues forever.
Also, Incapsula is the only recommended solution for DDoS attacks, it blocks them and they offer a great DDoS risk calculator tool, you can see the risks of downtime before it happens in reality. This is an Enterprise level CDN and DDoS protection service with sophisticated infrastructure and long years of experience. Another good thing is that with the free shared SSL service they offer, you can secure your file connections, without paying extra money.
4. Cachefly
As I said earlier, this is the fastest CDN through different tests. They offer 100% availability guarantees. They are one of the few companies that offer global CDN on all the continents. The company has big brands and customers like Microsoft, Honda, Toyota, Add This, Adobe, Bank of America, and many more.
That’s a signal of trust from the biggest companies in the World. However, they have expensive CDN pricing, or more precisely, large plans. You can’t find a plan with a few Gigabytes, and it’s recommended for small businesses and sites with huge traffic.
5. CDN.net
This Content Distribution network speeds up websites through servers in 170 different locations worldwide. They offer DDoS protection and a free shared SSL certificate.
At the same time, the company technology supports GZIP compression, which is important for better performance and speed. The load balancer technology will ensure serving your site files from the right location.
The company offers a free 1TB trial, but for 30 days only. You can try their service during that period. No one will use all that huge traffic limit with a small or medium website. There is a phone number in the US and the UK for customer support.
6. Rackspace
The Rackspace cloud file storage is one of the top CDN providers that make your site better. They offer “pay as you go” file storage in the cloud. It’s a secure environment to host large files and static websites.
Furthermore, you can host your website’s static files and images like any other advanced CDN. And the best thing is that the infrastructure is fully protected, and they are one of the most trusted cloud computing companies. I recommend this company for large-size sites, the more traffic you have, the less money you pay.
7. Cloudflare
Cloudflare is probably the largest CDN in the world because it fits any size of the website from small blogs to large eCommerce sites. Everyone knows, or at least heard about this company, they are a good free CDN service provider without a doubt, but, their speed has decreased in the last years and it’s recommended only for people who can’t pay for premium services.
Cloudflare offers a free plan with limited features and it’s recommended for small blogs who can get their own premium CDN service. On the other hand, their premium plans are expensive if you compare them to the above companies. You need to pay $20 at least, every month, and that’s not the solution for all people. If you’re looking for a good CDN for video hosting, Cloudflare is a good service to choose from, but also, it’s not cheap at all.
8. Google Cloud
Not all people know that Google has a fast CDN service that makes sites loading blazing fast with rewriting rules, and many advanced settings and configurations.
As one of the biggest CDN providers, Google servers host your site content after copying and optimizing it from your original server. Then, the Google configurations and speed technology will compress your images, and even, optimize the CSS, HTML, JavaScript, and other resources.
When a visitor sees your site, they get the CDN cached version directly from Google high-speed servers. The powerful infrastructure of Google optimizes the full website for speed.
Please be careful with your CSS, in many times, this CDN aggressively modifies the style sheet files and things can become horrible for visitors.
9. Amazon CloudFront
Of course, the Amazon web service is a large network around the world that serves thousands of companies. They offer a secure environment to host any website content and make it better. You can restrict the CDN by country, and you can host live and dynamic content.
This service is a powerful TTL or (time-to-live) that can be set to 0 seconds, in addition, Amazon is still one of the cloud computing leaders, but their service looks complicated for beginners and even experienced webmasters in many cases who want a simple CDN.
When it comes to finding a reliable CDN live provider, this one will be a good choice, but it will cost more, of course, for the good quality and it’s better recommended for large sites and Video producers. In terms of speed, having a CDN on amazon should work better for heavy traffic websites with millions of visits, but also, it’s a suitable solution for hosting games that consume higher levels of monthly bandwidth and server resources.
10. Akamai
The Akamai content delivery network is well known globally for its speed and advanced internet connections. They have a strong infrastructure to speed up sites and make things better for online users. Of course, this company works with big brands and large businesses in general and the CDN costs are higher compared to regular providers.
That’s why it’s not used by bloggers or small site owners. However, you can use their powerful service through the second company in this list above.
Conclusion
These are not all the greatest CDN services that you need to know, but they are the best ones for security, speed, and performance. It’s not easy to limit the list to 10 only, but you can find your best choice when you limit the number of selections. The first one is the best in my tests and it’s highly recommended. Now, based on my own CDN price comparison, I found Stack to be the most reliable and also cost-effective service, and so, it causes competition in prices and also the quality of the services at once.
If you have any experience with any of these companies, you can share it with us in your comment.
