Measuring CDN performance: we need you!

We launched CDN Planet on October 3, 2011. We got a lot of feedback and by far the most requested 'feature' was performance data. For example: "I want to know what CDN is fastest in the US". This makes a lot of sense. The primary use of a CDN is to speedup delivery of content and help overall web performance, so on a site that promises to help you select the right CDN ... you want to see performance data, right? Right!

We decided pretty quickly that we wanted to collect our own data, in a way that we think is right. In our opinion, the best data comes from Real User Monitoring (RUM), measuring performance from an end user point of view: how long does it take to download an object from a CDN, from within a real browser, used by a real site visitor?

How we do Real User Monitoring to gain insight in CDN performance

In a nutshell:

• 2 lines of JS code on your webpages
• After window.onload, a 2 KB external JS file is downloaded from our CDN, asynchronous
• An object is loaded from one of the CDNs, in the background
• Timing data is beaconed to our server
• There is no impact on the user experience!

That really is the short story, because we do a lot to make sure only valid data goes into our database. The methodology is proven. The code has been running on a few sites since January and we have spent many hours analyzing the data. It is good to go.

Per today, we can measure performance for these CDNs: Amazon CloudFront, Cotendo, EdgeCast, Fastly, Highwinds, Internap, Level3, NetDNA/MaxCDN and Voxel.

At the bottom of this page is a short FAQ with some more info on how we do the testing, but to be clear on one thing right here: we use our CDN accounts to measure performance, not yours.

What you get: free, personalized CDN performance stats

We will give you secure, online access to nice looking, easy to comprehend charts (example below), that will show you how fast your CDN is for your site visitors. That's right, you will look at performance data for the CDN you use on your site, based on measurements that took place in the browsers of your site visitors.

You can change time zone for easier analysis and view the stats on desktop, tablet or mobile.

What you need to do

Very little.

• Use the form below to send us your name, email address and website URL
• Within a day, we will send you the JS code and your login credentials
• Add the JS code to your site
• Look at juicy CDN performance data, yeah!

After you add the JS to your site, you will need to wait an hour to view the first CDN performance data in your browser.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! You are great!

Sign up!

FAQ

Will my CDN usage go up by adding the JS to my pages?

No.

Are all CDNs treated equal?

Yes!

Are your CDN accounts the same as what regular customers use?

Yes, nothing special.

How many measurements take place per user per visit?

We only do one measurement per CDN per user per day.

What is the file size of the object downloaded from a CDN?

Approximately 16 KB (a 50 KB HTML file, sent GZIP compressed).

How will you present the performance data on your site

We are not sure yet, but most likely, for every CDN, we will show both absolute and relative performance for several continents and/or (big) countries.

When will the first performance data appear on CDN Planet?

As soon as we have enough data!

When will you start measuring performance of other CDNs, like Akamai?

We want to measure performance of all CDNs and we will continue talking to the remaining CDNs about our goals, methodology and how they can benefit from this.