← Answers·websites·informational

    What is a content delivery network (CDN) and do I need one?

    Reviewed by Taylor Moses, Co-Founder, Strategy & Web·

    Direct Answer

    A CDN is a global network of servers that caches your website's static files (images, CSS, JS) close to users. Yes, every business website needs one. CDNs cut average load time 30–60% on the same hosting plan, and major CDNs (Cloudflare, Vercel, Netlify) include one for free.

    Voice answer (≤30 words)

    “A CDN is a global network that caches your site near visitors. Every business site needs one and most are free.”

    Cloudflare's free tier handles unlimited bandwidth and includes DDoS protection, SSL, and basic analytics — enough for most service-business sites.

    Pages served from a CDN edge node typically respond in 30–60ms vs. 200–400ms from a single-region origin server.

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