I'm in need of a high quality and reliable CDN. I currently run a forum with an approximation of 60-80 connections at once at peak times and 40 or so off-peak. I need something to host the images off-site to allow for maximum speeds.

My budget is $100-$150/month and I'll need the servers to be located in the US as that's where a majority of my visitors are from.

http://cachefly.com/ seems like a good solution for you. They have a nice anycast based setup with auto-replicating storage across their POPs.

Well, there are plenty reliable of CDN providers in US. Beside Cachefly, you may look for Edgecast, MaxCDN, TheNYNOC or VPS.net

You could contact akamai - they will give you a quote but they do not provide any public prices...

or you could run your own alternatively... you can get cheap VPS#s all over the world .nl .de .us and then set it up... may be cheaper to run your own

Well, there are plenty reliable of CDN providers in US. Beside Cachefly, you may look for Edgecast, MaxCDN, TheNYOC or VPS.net

Just wanted to correct a typo in Ben's reply. It's not TheNYOC, but is TheNYNOC :D

I've not used it but Amazon have enabled CloudFront for use with non-Amazon origin servers now as well.

Gavin

I personally use MaxCDN. I like them.

I'm curious, how would you make that working with a forum?

Even if you edit each template to change each images too point at the cnd instant of local file, you will still have to work php/mysql locally.

I'm just wondering, cause I'm intereseted... :) I have a forum that is taking 700GB per month but mostly of PHP.

Go with Amazon for that budget.
Akamai? unless you want to go with the bentley of CDN's and have 10k/month to burn. THen call Akamai. They might give you some dead silence as a response to $150/month.

I'm in need of a high quality and reliable CDN. I currently run a forum with an approximation of 60-80 connections at once at peak times and 40 or so off-peak. I need something to host the images off-site to allow for maximum speeds.

My budget is $100-$150/month and I'll need the servers to be located in the US as that's where a majority of my visitors are from.

I tried a few cdn services myself - simplecdn (RIP), rackspace cloudfiles, amazon clouldfront and maxcdn. My fav is maxcdn and use it on all my sites now which consist mainly of wordpress and vbulletin based sites. Example http://vbtechsupport.com/ :).

maxcdn serves all their files off SSD storage arrays these days so fast. They also email special offers now and again for discounted bandwidth so if you have a large bandwidth consuming site you can take advantage of the discounted bandwidth offers :)

HTH

do not use akamai they are rubbish for picture content
i used to have others too even 1-2 day for testing purpose i am now testing amazon cloudfront i am going to write here the result take a look my file i didnt test maxcdn i will test if amazon fail

I'm curious, how would you make that working with a forum?

Even if you edit each template to change each images too point at the cnd instant of local file, you will still have to work php/mysql locally.

I'm just wondering, cause I'm intereseted... :) I have a forum that is taking 700GB per month but mostly of PHP.

Any CMS that you using for your forum? CDN is supported by most of the CMS.

It's IPB forum.

I followed some instructions found on the internet for MaxCDN Hook (I guess the the instructions could work on any CDN) to move images, js and css to CDN. Seems to work pretty well... I'll see tomorrow how many bandwidth I've saved. Just as now, MaxCDN said he deliver 2GB. This forum normally do 22GB per day. I'll see tomorrow with a full day on CDN what he's giving. One fact is noticable right now: Loading is pretty much faster! :)

It's IPB forum.

I followed some instructions found on the internet for MaxCDN Hook (I guess the the instructions could work on any CDN) to move images, js and css to CDN. Seems to work pretty well... I'll see tomorrow how many bandwidth I've saved. Just as now, MaxCDN said he deliver 2GB. This forum normally do 22GB per day. I'll see tomorrow with a full day on CDN what he's giving. One fact is noticable right now: Loading is pretty much faster! :)

Oh man! You are fast :) FYI, you won't save any bandwidth using CDN service.

I'm just looking to lighten the load on my virtual private server so I won't have to upgrade to a dedicated for at least a month extra. I'm looking into MaxCDN, it looks promising. I'll place an order soon for the $39/1TB. Pretty cheap I must say.

I would really recommend MaxCDN as they are excellent CDN provider.
The first 1TB will only cost $39.95 and there prices are affordable .

Take a look into it.

Thanks

Oh man! You are fast :) FYI, you won't save any bandwidth using CDN service.

Oh... sad. The unique reason for using CDN is for speed delivery around the world?

I was thinking that the CDN was catching my files on the first time and then deliver it to other from that cache until it expire and had to be catched again.

Oh... sad. The unique reason for using CDN is for speed delivery around the world?
It also helps to reduce your origin load since static files are now served from CDN servers.

I was thinking that the CDN was catching my files on the first time and then deliver it to other from that cache until it expire and had to be catched again.
Yes, that how it works. However, you still need to pay the CDN bandwidth for delivering your contents to visitors ;)

but for 1:1 price, CDN had no avantage.

Anyway, seems I saved 4GB yesterday, it's about 120GB per month. I could also change the caching to 1 week instant of 1 day since I have a script that delete avatar and stuff on the CDN in case of update.

I'll also try to play with the "cache-control".

I've been using EdgeCast's CDN which is resold by GoGrid. They aren't the cheapest CDN around but they have a fantastic network.

Oh... sad. The unique reason for using CDN is for speed delivery around the world?

I was thinking that the CDN was catching my files on the first time and then deliver it to other from that cache until it expire and had to be catched again.

There a lot of good reasons to use a CDN. Low latency is just one of them and it is the easiest feature implemented -- "poor's man CDNs"

In your case you can run reverse proxies + URL rewrites to achieve what you are intending to do instead using expensive (serious) CDNs.

I'll stick with my poor man CDN for now :p

do not use akamai they are rubbish for picture content
i used to have others too even 1-2 day for testing purpose i am now testing amazon cloudfront i am going to write here the result take a look my file i didnt test maxcdn i will test if amazon failWhat issues did you have with akamai? They are regarded as the "top" cdn, I've never had issues with them delivering images. Highwinds on the other hand...

What issues did you have with akamai? They are regarded as the "top" cdn, I've never had issues with them delivering images. Highwinds on the other hand...

what issues you having with Highwinds ?

what issues you having with Highwinds ?

The performance really isn't there. However for download sites highwinds is amazing.

The performance really isn't there. However for download sites highwinds is amazing.
Jacob's right. Highwinds is great for download sites as their network is superb, but their CDN offering is still fairly new. The way the do the DNS setup for their CDN requires some cname redirects which causes some performance problems. While it's still successful at reducing the load on the server, and in many circumstances DOES speed up the loading of a website, however there are some alternatives out that might better serve you.

highwinds have product called Transparent Load Balancing (TLB) and no more redirects issues :D

We use it for improving speed for small object delivery and it working great



Jacob's right. Highwinds is great for download sites as their network is superb, but their CDN offering is still fairly new. The way the do the DNS setup for their CDN requires some cname redirects which causes some performance problems. While it's still successful at reducing the load on the server, and in many circumstances DOES speed up the loading of a website, however there are some alternatives out that might better serve you.

cotendo, edgecast, cdnetworks