Do you know that slow loading pages are bad for search engine ranking? Page loading is an official search engine ranking factor, and if your pages are not loading within 3 seconds, you need to work on it right away. You need to take care of loading time on the desktop as well as mobile. Along with taking care of basic requirements such as good hosting company, cache integration & few others, Content Delivery Network (CDN) plays a great role in speeding up your WordPress site.
In case you have missed it, Harsh has already written a great piece about what CDN is and why you should use it. If you are completely new to CDN, you should read that post first. Also, check out:
- Seven quick tips to speed up your Website load time
- Does Website load time matters for SEO? Learn how to improve
- 2 Awesome free site to check your blog loading time
Got back? Great. Now that you know why you should use a CDN service let’s see which CDN service providers are the best options for WordPress. In this post, I will introduce you to the 6 best CDN services for WordPress.
Best WordPress CDN Services To Make WordPress Site Faster
Let’s see what’s in the list, shall we?
1. MaxCDN
MaxCDN is one of the most popular CDN services for WordPress. Used by many popular WordPress sites including few in the ShoutDreams network. MaxCDN provides a number of plans for the users to choose from.
If you are using WP Fastest Cache plugin, then you are in luck because the plugin comes with an easy MaxCDN integration feature. You just need to enable CDN and provide the necessary information. However, if you are still confused, this step-by-step tutorial will make things clear for you.
MaxCDN has servers located in different cities of the USA and EU along with other locations like Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Israel, Sao Paulo, etc. Its powerful control panel lets you control different cache options for your website.
While MaxCDN’s plans start from $9 per month for a 100GB plan, you can test the service by creating a free test account.
The free account comes with unlimited bandwidth, instant support, and all the premium features. If you have been planning to integrate a CDN service with your WordPress site, MaxCDN is the idlest choice. One important thing for those who care about SEO, MaxCDN offers the canonical feature which ensures your SEO remains top-notch.
2. KeyCDN:
KeyCDN is another popular CDN solution which is popular for their cutting edge technology & for more optimization they offer along with CDN. This service supports all popular platform including Drupal, vBulleting, Xenforo to name a few.
When it comes to integrating with WordPress, it offers various options like using WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache plugin, Zencache to name a few. If security is one of your concern, you will be happy to know that; KeyCDN offers free SSL certificate using LetsEncrypt.
Key highlights of KeyCDN:
- 30 days free trial without credit card
- Free credits worth 25GB of traffic
- Pay as you go
- 5 zones are free & additional zone would cost $1
- Instant account activation
Take 30 days test drive of KeyCDN (Get bonus $10 Credits)
3. CloudFlare
CloudFlare is a widely used CDN service for WordPress. The intelligent CDN service makes your website super fast by optimizing the page delivery system. As CloudFlare blocks suspicious threats and limits access for potential abusers, it will also make your website more secure.
The proprietary ‘Rocket Loader’ feature of CloudFlare will make sure that the network connections and third-party resource usage are optimized properly. Here’s a 5-second video showing the advantage of using Rocket Loader.
You can enjoy the basic CloudFlare features for free. Yes, you only have to pay for getting additional features like mobile optimization, instant support, web application firewall, multi-user access, etc.
Unlike most other CDN services, CloudFlare does not charge for the bandwidth usage. The free service also includes SSL support. And if you want to disable CloudFlare for any reason, you can do that with a single click.
4. Rackspace
With a reliable system for delivering your media files and other contents, Rackspace is another excellent CDN service provider. When using Rackspace, you are free to upload larger files like HD movies, videos or site backups in multiple segments and download them as a single file.
As Rackspace guarantees an impressive uptime of 99.9 percent, you can remain assured knowing that your files are always available for the users. Rackspace also claims to write each file in three different storages and provide their servers with dual power supply systems.
Rackspace has data centers in all the major cities including Chicago, Dallas, Northern Virginia, London, Hong Kong and Sydney. Therefore, your visitors can always receive the website data from the closest location. Starting from $0.10/GB per month, the service also has several pricing plans for different types of users.
5. CacheFly
Trusted by big brands like Microsoft, LG, Twit, Toyota, LG, Adobe and Ars Technica, Cachefly is a superfast, secure CDN service for WordPress. With more than 40 data centers spread around the world, Cachefly is capable of delivering your website contents in a fast and efficient way.
The dynamic control panel of Cachefly lets you keep track of your usage statistics. Besides the current reports, you can also view the saved reports and schedule automated report sending anytime you want. By using the Gzip Compression technology, Cachefly speeds up the content delivery system and save your bandwidth cost.
Starting from $99 for 256GB per month, Cachefly has three different plans for the users. And if you want to get a customized plan, there’s a handy price calculator too. Before purchasing any plan, you can test it for 30 days for free.
6. Incapsula
Incapsula is a common name in the world of CDN services. With its superior capacity data centers located around the world, Incapsula is capable of providing a superfast service for different needs like online stores, SaaS business or on-demand video streaming.
The CDN service of Incapsula is especially popular for its enterprise-level security measures. Besides the PCI certified firewall, the security system includes smart DDoS protection and load balancing features. The CDN service could be turned on or off by making a simple DNS change.
Incapsula provides a very powerful dashboard for its users. The dashboard allows you to view the traffic, performance and security aspects of your website anytime you want. You will also have access to a detailed activity log.
It is possible to use the basic CDN service for free in personal blogs or simple websites. However, if you want to enhance security features, you have to go for the premium packages.
7. CDN77
Despite being a new entry, CDN77 has quickly become a popular name in the world of CDN services. With a customer-centric approach and a fair, transparent policy, CDN77 provides a huge boost in the page loading speed and overall performance of your website.
CDN77 offers a very simple integration for the users. You can get started with the service by following some simple, easy steps. Once everything is set up, you can manage the control panel from anywhere you want.
And if you are using the W3 Total Cache plugin, you can follow this detailed tutorial to setup CDN77 on your website.
With its 27 data centers located in 23 different countries, CDN77 makes sure that your website is loading in the quickest possible time. If you want to give it a try, you can get started with the 14-day free trial and upgrade to premium plans later.
Which WordPress CDN are you using?
While websites used to rely on a single server for delivering all the content, CDN services have changed the scenario forever. By using a reliable CDN service, you can make sure that the visitors are enjoying a faster page loading speed and a better-performing website.
So, which CDN service are you going to use on your WordPress site?
And if you are already using a CDN service, please share your experience with the fellow Shouters by leaving a comment below.
From my experience MAXcdn performs extremely well. I’ve tried a few of the others and the only one that compares in terms of performance is Cloudfare.
Thanks for sharing the list of best content delivery network service providers to speed-up wordpress blog. I am Also using CloudFlare free CDN service to speed up my wordpress blog. Its working great to reduce page load time.
Earlier I have used Free Cloudflare CDN service with siteground but now I changed to AWS cloudfront CDN. I am quite happy but as I am reading your article I am thinking to test drive KeyCDN now. I now don’t want to spend $10 per month with StackPath which was earlier MaxCDN.
I’ve had a great experience with BelugaCDN, also its so much cheaper then all the names mentioned in this post. Instant setup with no contracts and very easy to setup for someone with limited skills.
I am using StackPath, their features are good and the pricing is cheaper. They have many zones covered and you probably have heard “Max CDN is now StackPath.” Hence, the quality of their service is quite up to the mark.
I am surprised to see Cloudinary missing from the list. Obviously, we can’t include all. But for site using images and videos, Cloudinary can be considered. I have just started using it and evaluating it. Disclaimer – I am in no way associated to Cloudinary.
Hey Foysal,
Thanks for sharing the knowledge, I am using Cloudflare on my newly started WordPress powered website HD Wale. It’s working fine but sometimes it creates problems specially while using it’s free ssl.
Please tell me in which mode do I use Cloudflare’s free ssl certificate, Flexible or Full?
My website is really fast loading after Cloudflare integration but sometimes it shows me the host error, should I replace cloudflare with Maxcdn?
Regards,
~ Vijay
Thanks for partaking the best CDN plugin list and its features.
Hey Ahmed,
Can you compare between MaxCDN and KeyCDN?
Hi,
I am surprise you havent mentioned amazon CDN which is really good and cheap as compared to other CDN in the list. Is there any particular reason you didn’t mention about Amazon CDN ?
Thanks in Advance.
I am using CloudFlare for all my blogs but now a days very frequently I am getting 522 errors in CloudFlare. I have created support tickets but did not get any response what so ever from them. The issue is that my site is offline it says but it actually is not. Every traffic that goes through their Chennai centre is having this issue and that is why I am looking for other CDN providers which I could use. What CDN does SML use? Any idea? Which would be good as far as speed and performance is concerned any idea?
@Prabhu
I’m using Cloudflare only. In case if you need to pick one, I would suggest go for KeyCDN or MaxCDN.
Prabhu
Same Problem Happens With Me. & I’m Gived My Cloud Flare Account Username & Password Than They Solved My Issue.
Cloudflare is the Best and Free CND, Which i am Using in All of my WordPress Blogs. Also One more benefit of Cloudflare is they provide free SSL Certificate, I Think Cloudflare is must have thing for every website.
Thanks for sharing the list of best content delivery network service providers to speed-up wordpress blog. I am Also using CloudFlare free CDN service to speed up my wordpress blog. Its working great to reduce page load time.
I’ve seen Maxcdn and Cloudflare in so many places like in bootstrap cdn, Jquery cdn. I think these are top cdn’s. I suggest both these CDN’s.
Is there any reason that you didn’t include Amazon Cloudfront in you list? I think the cloudfront should be on 2nd position after MaxCDN.
hey Ahmed,1st of all thanks a lot for this post..I am a newbie blogger and I don’t have much idea about CDN..so reading all the necessary details from shoutmeloud..as a newbie blogger with pretty much less traffic I want to use free cdn service initially.Will CLOUDFARE will be ok from me?kindly suggest
As I am a newbie blogger and I never thought that CDN is Important for our blog :3 But after Reading this post I am thinking to buy MaxCDN’s Subscription in upcoming days 🙂
Hi Jaidayal,
If you are a newbie blogger, which means you don’t have enough experience in blogging, I suggest you to start with a free service initially. You can always go for the premium version if the need arises.
Thanks for your comment.
Good article , you’ve explained well about all CDN providers thank you for sharing it…
I am glad that you liked the explanation, Basharath. Keep coming back for more interesting articles like this.
Thanks for your comment.
Thanks for the amazing article. I’m using cloudflare from past 6 months. My question is, which caching plugin is best with cloudflare? And why cloudflare is showing fake page views.
Thanks for partaking the best CDN plugin list and its features. I did not check all plugins, so I just want to know, which is easier to implement, maintain and having high features?
Hi Harekrishna, if you don’t have any experience with CDN’s, I suggest you start with CloudFlare. Here’s a detailed guide on How To Setup Free CloudFlare CDN For Your WordPress Blog.
Let me know how it goes.
Thanks for your comment.
Amazon Cloudfront is the fastest and cheapest. Give it a try, it is not hard to set it up…. way cheaper than MaxCDN. I’ve used both and I migrated to Amazon from MaxCDN
That’s interesting, Ngan. Thanks for the heads-up. I will definitely check it out.
Thanks for your comment.
CloudFlare is very impressive and its free. There was a time when I had no idea about CDN and my host warn me high resource usage, then I move to CloudFlare CDN and I am pretty happy with its service.
That’s the way to go, Tanmoy. Using CDN is an excellent way to reduce the load on your server.
Thanks for your comment.
I’m using Akamai and Edgecast.
That’s great, Gulshan, Akamai is the best choice for enterprise level CDN.
Thanks for your comment.
Nah, Anyone can buy Akamai through LiquidWeb
I have used MaxCDN and Cloudflare and they both are quite good. KeyCDN is also a good choice. It costs just $0.4 for first 10TB.
Great heads up, Rahul. I will check KeyCDN later today.
Thanks for your comment.