A content delivery network, or CDN, is a network of servers in various data centres around the world with the goal of improving the security and performance of your websites for their visitors. The CDN service at IONOS is provided by CloudFlare.
In these cases, it is recommended to use a CDN:
If your websites have static content, such as images or other content that is not user-driven
If your websites use JavaScript
If your websites have many visitors from abroad
Tip: You can test whether the performance of your website has improved with the help of www.webpagetest.org. If you want to compare performance, you can temporarily disable the CDN by activating Development Mode.
How It Works
After activating your CDN, the static contents of your website are stored temporarily in the nearest CloudFlare data centre before being distributed throughout the CloudFlare network. CloudFlare currently operates 151 data centres around the world. Visitors to your website who access it through the CDN will receive the data from the nearest data centre. This can speed up the load time of your website in any part of the world. There is no traffic limitation.
Security Benefits
CloudFlare protects your website by analysing and filtering out harmful traffic. This protects the website from spammers, SQL injection attacks, DDoS attacks, and excessive bot crawling.