On Stratusly we’ve written our fair share of CDN reviews and comparisons but none that are specifically tailored to the WordPress CMS which now powers a whopping 25% of the Internet. In our other product comparisons we primarily focused on aspects like performance, feature offering, ease of use/UI, and security. In this writeup we will be mainly be looking at 2 things; low cost and ease of integration with WordPress. Secondary considerations are network size, performance, and features. This article is intended for small organizations or personal bloggers using WordPress on a tight budget. If you’re looking for a more heavy duty CDN to handle large amounts of traffic, check out this article.
Why Use a CDN With Your WordPress Site?
We won’t go into great detail about what a CDN is or how it works, but to make a long story short, all WordPress publishers from the smallest mom and pop to the largest tech blogs on the web should be using a CDN to improve the performance, availability, and security of their site. This is important not only for improving your user experience, but Google is also taking your website performance and security into considering when ranking you in the SERPs. Plus, most of the CDNs we’ve covered below offer plans that cost little to nothing and can be setup in less than an hour using plugins or a simple nameserver change. There’s no excuse to not be using one.
The Top 5 Best Wordpress CDNs
In no particular order, below you will find the top 5 CDNs for use with your WordPress site.
CloudFlare
CloudFlare has quickly grown to become one of the largest CDNs in the world in just a few short years and now has over 100 POPs in just about every corner of the world. In addition to a massive network footprint and an impressive security offering, the service is incredibly easy to setup and they even offer a free plan for bloggers. Features are limited for those on the free plan, but it still gives you global distribution, DDoS protection, and even free shared SSL (note: HTTPS is also a ranking factor for Google in 2017).
Key Features:
- Huge global network over 100+ POPs
- Free entry level tier
- Flat fee pricing for the upgraded tiers – no bandwidth restriction
- Free SSL, DDoS mitigation, and other basic security features
- Fast setup through their easy to use UI or their custom WordPress plugin
- Integrates with most popular WordPress caching plugins
Pricing:
Incapsula
Incapsula is a relative newcomer to the CDN space but have proven themselves to be a force to be reckoned with bringing on over 100,000 customers in just a few short years. Their CDN is smaller than some others in the marketplace with 32 global data centers, but performance is very good due to an intelligent software stack and they offer a broad range of other performance and security features that give CloudFlare a run for their money.
To gain access to their whole security offering you will need to sign up for a paid plan (14 day free trial is included) but they also offer a free tier for bloggers.
Key Features:
- High performance CDN
- Strong global network coverage
- Free entry level plan
- Bot mitigation included with free plan
- Fast setup with a simple DNS change
- Strong security offering on paid plans
- 14 day free trial on all paid plans
Pricing:
KeyCDN
KeyCDN markets themselves as a “cheap CDN” with a simple pay-as-you-go pricing structure meant for small businesses and bloggers. Rates start at only $.04/GB and go down from there, making it a very cost effective option with no long term commitments. And although they have only 25 data centers globally, they offer many next-gen features like instant purging, real-time reporting, HTTP/2 support, and more.
Key Features:
- HTTP/2 Support
- Free Shared SSL
- Origin Shield
- Instant Purge
- 25 Data Center Locations
- Easy WordPress integration
- Image optimization service
- 30-day free trial
Pricing:
CDN77
CDN77 is a European based content delivery network with 32 data centers spanning across the globe and simple pay-as-you-go pricing starting at around $.05/GB (North America). They are one of the more basic CDNs in the list in terms of feature offering, but still offer good global network coverage, real-time reporting, HTTP/2 support, and easy integration with WordPress using any of the leading caching plugins like W3 Total Cache or WP Super Cache.
Key Features:
- 32 global data centers
- Real-time reporting
- Simple WordPress integration via popular plugins
- HTTP/2 support
- Pay-as-you-go pricing by region
- 14-day free trial
Pricing:
Fastly
Fastly is quickly becoming the CDN of choice among developers and enterprises alike due to their strong focus on mobile/dynamic content delivery and good reputation among the developer community. They boast customers like BuzzFeed, Kayak, Github, Pinterest, and imgur. They are also the most expensive CDN on this list. The rate you pay depends on which region you deliver to, with rates dropping when you exceed 10TB in a month. They also offer customer pricing if you’re willing to commit to a long term contract. For those who need it, they also offer advanced security features for an additional cost.
Key Features:
- Free trial account with $50 in free traffic
- Real-time purging and analytics
- Optimized for mobile traffic
- Custom WordPress plugin
- Simple pricing
- DDoS mitigation and bot detection
- PCI Level 1 compliant
Pricing:
