CDN is one of the features you need in order to have a blazing fast WordPress website, other than cache. The distributed content delivery concept allows the content of your website to be served from the nearest location from your readers location. This can significantly reduce network latency and well as the round-trip times. Modern WordPress hosting services offer CDN a standard feature. If you still use a traditional web hosting service and plan to move to a managed WordPress hosting service, we have compiled the list of best ones that come with built-in CDN.
CDN itself is an expensive technology. It takes a huge amount of capital to build a CDN service as you need to own physical servers on different locations around the globe. The fact is that the majority of WordPress hosting service don’t use their own CDN. Instead, they use a third-party CDN provider such as Cloudflare, StackPath, Fastly, and so on.
Here are our recommendations list if you are looking for a managed WordPress hosting service that have built-in CDN.
WordPress Hosting Services with Built-in CDN
1. Cloudways
Do you use Divi on your WordPress website? If so, Cloudways is one of the best options if you are looking for a managed WordPress hosting that has a built-in CDN. Cloudways is a great hosting for Divi for one main reason. It is one of the Elegant Themes partners in the Divi Hosting program. Divi Hosting itself is a program that bundles Divi with a hosting plan. You can create a Divi-powered WordPress website without manually installing Divi yourself. Your hosting plan is already pre-installed with Divi.
Of course, you can also use Cloudways to run other page builder plugins as well, including Elementor and Beaver Builder. The specifications and PHP configuration of Cloudways are more than enough to run most page builder plugins — as well as other plugin types. Cloudways comes with a default PHP memory limit of 256 MB and maximum file upload of 100 MB. Cloudways itself offers dedicated cloud hosting server, much like VPS whereby you can control server apps like web server, database server, and so on. You can monitor resources like RAM, storage, CPU, and so on.
In Cloudways, you can select a cloud service to power your hosting. Whether DigitalOcean, Google Cloud, or AWS. Cloudways itself is owned by DigitalOcean (acquired in 2022). The CDN feature of Cloudways is powered by Cloudflare.
Key details about Cloudways:
- CDN platform: Cloudflare
- Web server: Apache and Nginx
- Database: MySQL
- Default PHP memory limit: 256 MB
- Maximum file upload: 100 MB
2. Kinsta
If you have a WordPress agency, Kinsta is one of the options when you look for a hosting service that has a built-in CDN. Kinsta is a top-rated agency hosting service. Many notable agencies — including 10 Up, use the Kinsta service. You can use Kinsta no matter the page builder or theme you use. Kinsta has a great PHP configuration to make sure every theme and plugin you use run smoothly without any issue. Same as Cloudways above, Kinsta is also a cloud hosting service. The hosting service of Kinsta is powered by Google Cloud.
Kinsta adopts container technology on its platform. Every account has a dedicated container consisting of required apps such as web server, database server, and so on.
The CDN feature of Kinsta is powered by Cloudflare. You have a full control over the CDN. While the feature is enabled by default, you can manually disable it in case you need to. You are also provided with useful analytics feature to monitor the CDN usage. Kinsta itself is well-known for its great documentation and intuitive control panel. The best part about Kinsta is that it doesn’t apply fixed contract term. Instead, it applies the pay-as-you-go payment option.
Key details about Kinsta:
- CDN platform: Cloudflare
- Web server: Nginx
- Database: MariaDB
- Default PHP memory limit: 256 MB
- Maximum file upload: 128 MB
3. Flywheel
Flywheel is a hosting service owned by WP Engine. Even so, some technologies used by it are different to its parent company. For instance, it uses the different service for CDN. Instead of Cloudflare like WP Engine, Flywheel uses Fastly for its CDN feature. So, if you don’t like Cloudflare, you can use Flywheel as one of the WP Engine alternatives. Flywheel itself is also one of the Elegant Themes partners in the Divi Hosting program like Cloudways. In case you use Divi, Flywheel is a great option for you.
Key details about Flywheel:
- CDN platform: Fastly
- Web server: Nginx
- Database: MariaDB
- Default PHP memory limit: 256 MB
- Maximum file upload: 128 MB
4. Rocket.net
Rocket.net is another WordPress hosting service that uses Cloudflare to power its CDN feature. On Rocket.net, CDN is a required feature and cannot be disabled. Same as Kinsta, Rocket.net also offers built-in analytics feature to allow you to monitor the CDN usage on your website. In addition to CDN, Rocket.net also offers extra security feature in the form of WAF. Rocket.net offers WAF on both the server where your website is hosted and the CDN servers. WAF on CDN is powered by Imunify360. You can also monitor the use of WAF via the built-in analytics, just like the CDN.
If you are looking for a web hosting to handle high traffic at a lower price, Rocket.net is worth considering. The lowest plan offered by Rocket.net is capable of serving 250,000 visitors per month, with the bandwidth capacity of 50 GB. Rocket.net offers unlimited PHP workers on all plans.
Key details about Rocket.net:
- CDN platform: Cloudflare
- Web server: Apache
- Database: MySQL
- Default PHP memory limit: 1024 MB
- Maximum file upload: 100 MB
5. WP Engine
WP Engine is one the most popular managed WordPress hosting services. So, it would be a little bit unfair to not mention it although we already mention Flywheel. As a popular web hosting service — with a great reputation — WP Engine also comes with necessary features to run modern websites. Including CDN which is required in terms of site speed. As mentioned above, the CDN feature of WP Engine is powered by Cloudflare. WP Engine itself doesn’t explicitly mention the CDN feature as “CDN”. Instead, it uses the term “network caching” which technically refers to the same thing.
On WP Engine, CDN is always enabled and you have no option to disable it. Also, there is no built-in tool to monitor the CDN usage.
WP Engine itself uses Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and AWS to power its hosting service. Standard features like scheduled backups, SSL, and FTP are available.
Key details about WP Engine:
- CDN platform: Cloudflare
- Web server: Apache
- Database: MySQL
- Default PHP memory limit: 512 MB
- Maximum file upload: 50 MB
6. Pressable
Pressable is an Automattic product. Automattic, as you know, is the company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, and Jetpack. While the hosting service of Pressable is powered by the same technology as WordPress.com, the CDN feature is not powered by Jetpack. Instead, Pressable offers its own in-house CDN. You have an option whether you want to enable or disable CDN on Pressable. Unfortunately, there is no option to monitor the usage.
Pressable itself is a hosting service that has a great PHP configuration. It has the default PHP memory limit of 512 MB and maximum file upload of 2 GB. With the specs, you can use it to run any WordPress plugin and theme. Pressable allows you to try its control panel for free in case you want to try the experience of managing WordPress websites on it.
Key details about Pressable:
- CDN platform: In-house
- Web server: Nginx
- Database: MariaDB
- Default PHP memory limit: 512 MB
- Maximum file upload: 2 GB
The Bottom Line
CDN is required if you want to have a website that is faster to load. Not only does CDN help reduce network latency and round-trip times, but it can also ease the server burden as the static content is delivered from various locations. Your server doesn’t need to run new query to serve the request to pages on your site to deliver the content.
Most modern WordPress hosting services already offer CDN as one of their built-in features — other than cache and SSL. If you are on the search of a WordPress hosting service with a built-in CDN, you can try one of our recommendations on the above list.