CDN (Content Delivery Network)
A distributed network of servers that delivers web content to users from the nearest geographic location.
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Definition
A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a geographically distributed network of servers that caches and delivers web content (images, scripts, videos, HTML) from the location closest to the requesting user. This dramatically reduces latency and improves load times.
CDNs cache static assets at edge locations worldwide. When a user requests content, the CDN routes the request to the nearest edge server. If the content is cached there, it is served immediately. If not, the CDN fetches it from the origin server and caches it for future requests.
Major CDN providers include Cloudflare, AWS CloudFront, Fastly, Akamai, and Vercel's built-in CDN. Modern CDNs also offer DDoS protection, SSL termination, image optimization, and edge computing capabilities.
Why It Matters for Founders
CDNs are essential infrastructure for any web application serving a global audience. They improve page load speeds (directly impacting SEO and conversion rates), reduce origin server load, and provide security against DDoS attacks.
For startups, using a CDN is one of the easiest and most impactful performance optimizations. Most are free or very affordable at startup scale, and the performance improvements are immediate and measurable.
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Real-World Example
When a user in Sydney loads images from a website hosted in New York, a CDN like Cloudflare serves those images from an edge server in Sydney, reducing load time from 2 seconds to 200ms.
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Frequently Asked Questions
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