Free CDN Providers: Top Free Content Delivery Networks
Free CDN Providers: Smartphones and Internet services have become unbelievably affordable. Everyone has a smartphone with a high-speed Internet connection. In 2018, according to this article by Statista, 52.2 percent of all website traffic generated throughout the world was through mobile phones.
The result? Decreased attention span. Even if a page takes one extra second more to load, we feel restless and hit the back button. We click on another link from the SERP.
This is bad for those websites which do not load fast. Website speed is a ranking factor. If your page loads slowly and people go back (thereby, increasing the bounce rate) and click on another site, the rankings of your pages will drop. This also means bad business and less revenue, which cannot be afforded, irrespective of small and large websites.
Fortunately, other technology too has evolved and there are affordable ways to speed up your website. One of the ways you can increase website speed is by using Content Delivery Network (CDN), which are available not only at an affordable price but also for free. In this article, I will provide a list of free CDN providers.
Top Free CDN Providers
I have explained in this article what a CDN is: a CDN is, basically, a network of interconnected servers located at different geographical locations. When a user logs on to a website what happens behind the screen is that a request is sent from the browser of the user to the server where the website is hosted. The server then transmits the requested files to the browser of the user.
Now, usually, websites are hosted on servers that are located at one particular location. As a result, for users who are located far away from the location of the servers, it takes time for the browser to send the request to the server and for the server to transmit the requested files to the user. The result is that the website loads slowly.
Now, if a CDN is used, the requested files are sent from the server that is geographically nearest to the user. This speeds up the entire process and the website loads fast.
There are many free CDN providers. Let us have a look at them.
Cloudflare
This is the most popular of all free CDN providers. Cloudflare has a network of 165 data centers spreading across all the continents (except Antarctica, of course). Its free plan which is fast and reliable is valid for lifetime and provides security from basic DDoS attacks as well. Other features include:
- Access to Cloudflare Apps
- Shared SSL Certificate
- I’m Under Attack Mode
- 3 Page Rules
- Automatic Static Content Caching
- IPv6 Compatibility, and may more
Incapsula
Incapsula comes second in the list of free CDN providers. The various features include:
- Global CDN
- Content Optimization
- Traffic Access Control
- Static Content Caching
- Website Traffic Monitoring
- IPv6 Support
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Although it provides a trial period of 1 year, I haven’t used it yet. But apparently, even Netflix uses it to stream videos all over the world. And we know how fast Netflix videos are loaded.
Netlify
Netlify offers the following:
- One User Limit
- Custom domains & HTTPS
- Continuous Deployment
Photon
Photon, by Jetpack, is not a Content Delivery Network (CDN) in the truest sense of the word. It is, basically, an image acceleration service that serves only the images of your site through the global grid of WordPress.com. If you have a WordPress site and use a lot of images, then you can use this service. All you have to do is activate the Photon module of Jetpack.
Swarmify
Swarmify provides video acceleration services. It has a plugin for your WordPress site and its free plan which is valid for 60 days provides 1000 Video Views. The paid plan which starts at $49 per month is a good option for small and medium businesses that create a lot of video.
So, these are the best free CDN providers. There are many others. I will add them as I use them myself.
I hope this detailed article on free CDN providers helps you. For any query, drop a comment below and I will respond at the earliest.