A content delivery network (CDN) is a network of servers around the world that keep copies of your site’s files. Visitors are served from the location nearest them rather than always from your hosting server.
Why distance matters
Traxio hosts websites in Montreal, Canada, so a visitor in London connects across the Atlantic, which adds a small delay to every request. A page with 40 images, scripts and fonts makes 40 requests, so those delays add up. A CDN answers most of them from a nearby location.
What a CDN usually does
- Caches static files — images, CSS, JavaScript, fonts — close to visitors
- Can cache whole pages, if configured
- Absorbs traffic spikes and some attacks before they reach your hosting
- Often provides its own SSL certificate at its edge
Does a small site need one?
Not necessarily. Optimised images and page caching usually matter more than a CDN (CDN vs caching: what’s the difference?). A CDN is worth adding when:
- most of your visitors are far from the server
- pages carry lots of images
- you want an extra layer between attacks and your site
How it’s set up
On Traxio, Cloudflare is the supported CDN; other CDN and proxy services aren’t supported. Using it means moving your domain’s DNS to Cloudflare, which then proxies traffic to your hosting. That changes where DNS and SSL are managed, so read Using Cloudflare with Traxio hosting before you start.
If you’re comparing hosts, Traxio’s web hosting is free for your first 30 days with no card needed.