What is a CDN? India Edge Delivery Explained
A CDN (content delivery network) is a network of edge servers that cache a site's static files — images, CSS, fonts and JavaScript — close to visitors, so most requests never travel to the origin server. It lowers load times and origin bandwidth and absorbs spikes, but it does not replace hosting or fix a slow origin.
For Indian site owners deciding whether a CDN will actually speed up their site, and how to set one up and measure it.
knowledge
- Read time
- 4 min
- Sections
- 7
- Updated
- 14 Nov 2026
- Written by
- WebJi® team
Last editorial update: 14 November 2026. Prices follow the dated sources on this page; checkout confirms current charges.
What is a CDN, in plain words?
A CDN (content delivery network) is a network of edge servers, called points of presence, that keep cached copies of your site's static files close to visitors so each request travels a shorter distance than it would to your origin server. A reader in Chennai can be served images from a nearby edge, and only uncached requests go back to the host.
- Static assets cache well: images, CSS, fonts and JavaScript. HTML and account pages usually stay dynamic.
- Shorter round trips: an edge response skips most of the distance to the origin.
- Less origin bandwidth: edges serve the repeats, so the host moves less data.
- Spike absorption: traffic bursts and basic attack noise are handled before they reach the origin.
- Not a host: a CDN cannot replace slow hosting; it only shortens the delivery path.
How does a CDN make a website faster?
A CDN cuts two costs on every request — distance, because the edge is nearer than the origin, and repetition, because a cached file is served without touching the origin at all. Both show up as a lower time to first byte (TTFB) for static files.
A cache hit returns from the edge in milliseconds. A miss goes to the origin, and the response is then stored for the next visitor served by that edge. That is why the second visitor in a region loads faster than the first, and why the cache hit ratio over a week matters more than any single speed test.
How is a CDN different from web hosting and DNS?
Hosting stores and runs the site, DNS points the domain at an address, and a CDN sits between visitors and the host as a caching reverse proxy. They solve different problems, and a CDN can be removed without moving the site.
| Layer | Job | What changes if you switch it |
|---|---|---|
| Web hosting (origin) | Files, database, PHP and email | The site has to be migrated |
| DNS | Points the domain at an IP or at the CDN; TTL sets how fast changes spread | Records move to a new DNS provider |
| CDN | Caches and forwards requests at the edge, adds HTTPS and filtering | Turn the proxy off and traffic goes straight to the host |
Record types and TTLs are explained in what is DNS.
When does an Indian website need a CDN?
Add a CDN when a meaningful share of visitors is far from your server region, when images and scripts make up most of the page weight, or when traffic spikes reach the origin. An audience concentrated in one region on a nearby, well-tuned host often gains little.
WebJi®'s Webji Launch, Turbo and Scale shared plans list a global CDN among their features, from ₹299 a month before 18% GST (published pricing; checkout confirms the current figure). For other hosts, a free CDN tier is enough to test the effect on a brochure site or blog. Measure before and after rather than assuming it helped; the choice between two popular providers is compared in Cloudflare vs Bunny CDN.
How do you set up Cloudflare in front of cPanel hosting?
Putting Cloudflare in front of a cPanel account takes about fifteen minutes and no file changes; switching the domain's nameservers to Cloudflare is the step that makes it live.
- Add the domain in Cloudflare, check the imported DNS records, and copy the two nameservers it assigns.
- Replace the registrar's nameservers with those two and wait for propagation (see how to change nameservers).
- In cPanel, confirm AutoSSL has issued a certificate for the domain, because the origin must answer HTTPS.
- In Cloudflare, set SSL/TLS encryption mode to Full (strict) and enable Always Use HTTPS.
- Keep the proxy on (orange cloud) for the site's A and CNAME records; leave mail records DNS-only.
- Purge the cache once, then load a page and read its response headers.
Choosing Flexible while the origin already redirects to HTTPS is the classic cause of a redirect loop; Full (strict) avoids it once the origin certificate is valid.
What should a CDN never cache?
Cache static assets and leave anything personal to one visitor alone: cart, checkout, account, admin and preview pages must never come from a shared cache.
- Never cache:
/cart,/checkout,/my-account,/wp-adminand anything behind a login. - Watch Set-Cookie: a response that sets a session cookie should bypass the shared cache.
- Bypass query strings:
?add-to-cart=,?preview=and session parameters must not be cached. - Set defensible TTLs: long for images and fonts, short for HTML that changes daily.
- Purge after deploys: a CSS change will not appear until the edge copy expires or is purged.
How do you measure whether a CDN is working?
Compare TTFB on the same page before and after, from a location outside your server region, and check the cache-status header on static files. On Cloudflare the header is cf-cache-status, which reads HIT when the edge served the file.
curl -sI https://example.in/wp-content/themes/site/style.css | grep -i cf-cache-statusA hit ratio that stays near zero usually means HTML is not cached (normal on Cloudflare's free plan) or the TTL is too short. If the origin itself is the bottleneck, why is my website slow walks the fixes in order.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Cloudflare free plan good for Indian sites?
It is a reasonable way to test a CDN: it caches static assets and adds HTTPS and basic attack filtering at no cost. It does not cache HTML by default, so gains depend on how heavy your images, CSS and JavaScript are.
Will a CDN speed up my WordPress site?
It speeds up delivery of images, CSS and JavaScript, which is most of a typical WordPress page's weight. It will not fix a slow database, a heavy plugin or a weak origin, so fix those first and use a page cache plugin as well.
Does a CDN help SEO?
Indirectly. Faster loading can improve Core Web Vitals such as Largest Contentful Paint, which feed Google's page experience signals. A misconfigured CDN that caches the wrong pages or blocks Googlebot can do the opposite, so test after setup.
Can a CDN stop DDoS attacks?
A proxying CDN absorbs much volumetric traffic at the edge and hides the origin IP, which blunts many attacks. Large or targeted attacks need dedicated mitigation; see what is DDoS protection.
Last editorial update: 14 November 2026. Prices follow the dated sources on this page; checkout confirms current charges.
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