KeyCDN Review

Reviews and Expert Opinion

KeyCDN Review

By Mashum Mollah

“KeyCDN is a cloud-based service provider that is mainly built for the distribution of files across the globe. It is a high-performance content delivery tool that focuses on delivering reliable, affordable, and fast content. More so, it comes with close integration of the CMS, such as the Word Press. With the help of a plugin, the platform can be enabled and start distributing their files.”

KeyCDN In-Depth Reviews

5.0Based on 1 reviews
  • Features
  • Ease of Use
  • Performance
  • Support
  • Pricing
Pricing Details
  • North America Europe $0.04/GB
  • Asia Oceania $0.10/GB
  • South Africa $0.11/GB
Server locations
  • Washington DC-flag Washington DC
  • London-flag London
  • Sydney-flag Sydney
  • Singapore-flag Singapore

Overview

KeyCDN free cdn

Despite KeyCDN being a new CDN service provider, it offers the best and the most cost-effective CDN services that have turned out to be better than the top players in the online industry. KeyCDN is fast, simple, and offers real-time content delivery that is meant to last with HTTP/2 support.

KeyCDN was founded back then in 2012. Currently, it is one of the lowest-priced solutions compared to other service providers. They mainly focus on web performance not only in the CDN world but also in other areas such as WordPress page caching and image optimization. 

KeyCDN is one of the best content delivery providers, most organizations highly use it across the globe. It is one of the most cost-effective CDN for your website. It has over 35 data centers and 75k zones around the world. They have edge servers located in various regions to ensure the fast distribution of files. KeyCDN’s primary mission is developing and engineering content delivery solutions that are well accessible to lots of people. They tend to keep their costs low by partnering with peering partners, thus providing competitive prices. 

What is KeyCDN?

Currently, over 10,000 websites are using the KeyCDN. However, there is a significant increase due to the immense growth of digital content consumption with higher user expectations. And one of the best ways that most organizations are utilizing to deliver content with high reliability and performance globally is through CDN utilization. 

Hence, we can say that KeyCDN is a network of edge servers strategically located across the globe to deliver digital content to all users in the most efficient, effective, and fast way. When users make requests, they are routed to the nearest CDN edge server that reduces latency. It allows all users, despite the geographical location, to access fast-loading content, thus enjoying an improved experience. 

KeyCDN mainly focuses on speed. It helps in the performance improvement by a millisecond at a time. The good thing about our network system is that it can handle all traffic levels, from the small blogs to the top 10 websites. KeyCDN offers reliability due to its resilient infrastructure and 24/7 customer support. So, if you have questions on your mind about whether KeyCDN is good for your Blog website, then here you will get the complete outlook about KeyCDN which will help you to decide better.

KeyCDN Services Network

KeyCDN was launched in 2012 and it is a European-based CDN provider. Now KeyCDN operates around the globe with its 25 PoPs located in different countries. KeyCDN has been able to spread its wings across Europe, America, and Asia countries as well as providing the most efficient CDN services. Here take a look at the list of those 25 PoPs in the world.

KeyCDN Network
     Americas Europe Asia and Oceania
Miami Paris Tokyo
Chicago Moscow Sydney
San Jose Istanbul Singapore
Atlanta Zurich Taiwan
Montreal Milano Hong Kong
Seattle Frankfurt
Dallas Amsterdam
São Paulo Stockholm
Los Angeles London
Washington D.C. Valencia

KeyCDN Architecture

The KeyCDN architecture is made up of mainly two components. That is the edge servers and the points of presence. These key components help ensure continuous uptime maintenance, attacks are mitigated, and traffic is appropriately routed. When analyzing the KeyCDN architecture, one of the most important aspects to consider is finding the location of the PoPs.

The point of preference is usually the single geographical location where the CDN edge servers reside. The total numbers of PoPs that make up the KeyCDN typically have an enormous impact on global coverage. The edge servers work similarly to the web browser cache. These do not create content for the website but keep a copy of the content in the store.  

Types of Content When Using KeyCDN

When analyzing the global population internet use, the most bandwidth content is audio files, video, and image. However, there exist a lot of other types of content that KeyCDN can deliver, such as CCS, JS, HTML, ZIP, WOFF, and OTF.

How to use KeyCDN

KeyCDN, being one of the most pocket-friendly and most widely-used CDN services across the globe has reached up to the user’s expectations well. In, this case one question might pop up in your mind, “How Do I Use KeyCDN?”. Here you have a complete guide on how to use KeyCDN.

Log in to the KeyCDN dashboard.

The KeyCDN process is one of the most uncomplicated and most comfortable. All you need is to log into the KeyCDN dashboard. You are required to enter your domain, username, email address, and password. With one click, then you can be able to access the KeyCDN web dashboard. When you are a free starter, then you are not asked for any payment details immediately.

In the left navigation sidebar, click Zones.

When the dashboard opens, you can view your traffic, storage, balance, and credit, among others. You can find some helpful links that could help you get started. However, if you have used the site before, you can immediately figure out the basics and click zones. You can then add a zone name, origin server address, and right to get started. 

Set the custom domain  

After creating your zone, KeyCDN can offer you an URL along the lines of your domain. As usual, set up the custom CNAME record and make it more readable. You can consider changing your site code to use the key objects that you could consider caching. When you are using the other CMS or WordPress, then KeyCDN tools can help you to set up. These tools could include the real-time stats of your traffic.

The real-time logs panel can keep you updated with all the latest CDN events. The good thing is that the email support could be added at no additional charges. However, during your initial trying, you cannot be able to raise direct support. You can then save all your files and get access to all your clients.

Features (4.8/5)

Most people will end to enable their content delivery platform and have it left at that point. Though you will try taking advantage of all the CDN benefits, there are some more features that you can consider implementing to take your content delivery to another level. 

KeyCDN offers CDN features with various capabilities such as real-time logging and advanced reporting capabilities. Its user interface is not only intuitive but also simple. Some of the vital CDN customers are Upload care, Sony Vaio, Ahrefs, and MeteorJS. The KeyCDN review mainly outlines certain essential factors about KeyCDN, such as the list of their current network PoPs, their key pricing strategies, and the features they provide.  

With a broad range of features, some can help in the hardening security on the CDN, decrease the load on your origin server, and even reduce costs by avoiding bandwidth theft. Here is an overview of the critical features of KeyCDN;

what is KeyCDN

HTTP Live Streaming

HTTP live streaming or HLS is an important technology used in streaming live on-demand content. It plays an integral role in determining the optimal playlist to deliver to clients based on their available bandwidth. It means that the low cellular network clients could receive lower-quality content than those using a high-speed system. However, with the HTTP live streaming feature, all clients can access the same media without necessarily waiting for it to buffer.

Live streaming makes significant advancements in configuration abilities, security, usability, and accessibility. HTTP live streaming plays an integral role in mobile devices as it enhances these devices’ access to live media seamlessly and efficiently. With the use of KeyCDN, one can supercharge the HLS live stream by optimizing for HLS and creating the pull zone. The optimization HLS feature is always present in the KeyCDN dashboard.

Cache-Control: Speed up access.

The cache-control helps in the speeding up of access. It is an HTTP cache header made up of directives that allow one to define how and when they need caching and the time. The browsers will have this in-store, meaning there is no additional request that needs to be made to the server. It is essential to modify or add the cache-control response and expires the header field set to clients. 

Byte-range requests

The byte-range request will mainly occur when the client asks the server for a portion of the files. The main purpose of having this feature is to help conserve bandwidth usage by avoiding the downloading of complete files, and yet all that is needed is a small portion. Their main aim is to request particular sections from the large media files. 

The good thing with the byte-range requests is that they can be used with a wide range of clients to download files more than once simultaneously. This feature is handy, especially for large files that have been interrupted. With the use of the byte-range requests, you can pick up downloads from the point of interruptions. Also, a client can download only a PDF document’s critical page rather than the complete copy. 

Origin Shield – Reduce load on an origin server

The other feature is the origin shield that is an extra caching layer that reduces the origin server’s load. It mainly helps in accelerating and distributing the content from the origin server to the edge server. This is a great feature that reduces traffic primarily from the origin server and protects the infrastructure from traffic spikes and abuse. 

Doing this can enhance the fast flow of communication and draw more clients to the site. Of course, we all love visiting sites that are more reliable, fast, and efficient. 

Zone Referrer (hotlink protection) 

The zone referrer, also known as the hotlink protection, is another critical feature that is easy and quick to implement. It helps in the prevention of bandwidth theft. Through hotlinking, one can be able to link your images on their servers directly. It means that when one opens their sites, they have to load the image from your edge server CDC. This could take your bandwidth, costing you money in return. 

However, through the hotlink protection request, those individuals without the HTTP referral are not allowed to access your assets. In such a case, they try, then the investment could show an error on their site. It is usually available within the KeyCDN dashboard when you go through the zone referrers. 

Improve Performance

When the KeyCDN is implemented in the organization, this can lead to an increase in performance. The content is usually cached in pops worldwide, meaning it is brought close to users. With a short distance, then there can be a significant reduction in packet loss and latency. When this happens, then the overall performance of the organization can be enhanced and improved effectively. 

Boost Reliability

With the presence of the KeyCDN, then the requests can be routed to the nearest available location. If one edge server is not present, then the claims can be automatically sent to the next available edge servers. With this, automatic redundancy can be created, which helps ensure that the content remains accessible. 

Effortlessly Scale

When traffic is offloaded to the CDN, it is easier to manage the traffic spikes, scale down and up within short times. With this, then there can be less load on the origin server, thus minimizing the downtime. From the KeyCDN, web assets can be delivered more efficiently and faster as a typical website could be made of about 80%static content.

Increased Security

With the use of the KeyCDN, most traffic no longer gets to the origin server but rather to the CDN edge servers. IT ALLOWS DDoS attacks to be mitigated, and the SSL certificates can be easily implemented on the KeyCDN platforms, making sure all traffic is encrypted. 

More so, there are additional security features present with the CDN, such as security tokens and hotlink protection against third-party access. With the best security features, you can take control of how your images get used on the website. 

KeyCDN is one platform that pays total importance to rock-solid security and perfect uptime. With this system, many implementations are implemented to measure and prevent unauthorized actions and prevent attacks. Therefore, adding the CDN service to the stack can be overwhelming, but with KeyCDN, platforms can be easily configured to meet all specifications.

Lower Costs

The KeyCDN provider handles the infrastructure, thus eliminating any upfront maintenance and investment costs. The origin server bandwidth costs are reduced since the content gets delivered by the CDN edge servers. Hence, with the feature, there are lesser chances of upgrading to a more robust hosting plan. Since it will be serving less traffic.  When the cost is lowered, the organizations can pay attention to the other key areas that need improvement. 

Raise Conversions

Many cases attest, an increase in the website speed, digital content, or games could raise the conversions. It is because, when the rate is increased, the user experience is improved as well. According to a load storm, when you experience a second delay in the load time, this could lead to an almost seven percent loss in conversions. Therefore, with the KeyCDN, companies can increase their conversions, thus achieving higher sales goals.

Therefore, when using KeyCDN, your page speed will be higher. And since most eth people love fast, relevant, and reliable sites, they will love visiting your website and search engines such as Bing and Google. With this, all benefits that KeyCDN offers, then your content will rank higher than your competitors.

Reduce Abandonment

Factors such as usability, appearance, and navigation could contribute to a high bounce rate. One key factor is the total time it takes contents to load. However, with CDN’s use, then user engagement could be increased through a reduction of abandonments. In return, the ranking in search engines improves, there is an overall improvement in user experience and sales.  

With the fast loading of sites, this could draw more clients, increasing usability. You can have many users searching on your sites and thus creating that good engagement between you and your potential clients. 

Secure Token – Limiting the accessibility of CDN with time

With the secured tokens, one can generate the secured links with an expiry time. The thing is that once the token expires, then it is not possible accessing the content. Unlike the other service content providers, KeyCDN offers secure token free on each count. This feature is usually available within the KeyCDN dashboard when you go to the zone settings. 

X-Pull Key – Limiting CDN Traffic

The x-pull feature plays a significant role in restricting traffic from your content delivery network. You may do this to limit the bandwidth on your origin server, restrict access to the visible CDN URLs, or even consider distinguishing the KeyCDN traffic from the other traffic that could be occurring on your origin server. This feature is set to the KeyCDN by default; however, you can consider changing this value to a custom value.

More so, it could help provide a restriction on the visible CDN URLs. Whereby you can restrict the access returning the 403 or 405 error. You can be sure there is no specific user-agent with this feature when the KeyCDN fetches content from the origin server. 

Image processing 

With the powerful real-time image processing feature, users can optimize and transform images using simple query parameters. The image management workflow will always define the user experience by optimizing image deliveries from browsers. This feature enables image processing on the fly, thus creating multiple variants delivered from high performing CDN. 

This great feature is usually available for both the push and pull zones. The only thing that you can do is setting the image processing setting is enabled. The cache key host and the origin shield will be automatically enabled while ignoring the query string specifying disabled. It also allows the delivery of other content and processes images at the same time. 

We can say that there are so many additional ways to take their content delivery network to the next level. KeyCDN has all that is needed to fine-tune and deliver the best content to the visitors. From speeding up the delivery of your video content with HLS, digging into your log data, tweaking cache-control settings, programmatically purging, using the secure token, preventing bandwidth theft, and restricting CDN traffic.

In short, we can say that KeyCDN features are the best. When you log in to the critical CDN, you will see a fast, responsive, and beautiful dashboard. When you compare KeyCDN vs. MaxCDN, it is clear that KeyCDN gives users that fresh and right feeling. 

Ease of Use (4.4/5)

best content delivery network

The KeyCDN is easy to use for the content delivery network that provides stable set features for minimal prices. Its installation is quite simple and straightforward, and the users can easily have better access to it in a much simpler and faster manner. It has few servers focusing on certain key areas such as one in South America, one in Oceania, three in Asia, 10 in Europe, and 10 in North America. 

What makes it easy to use is that all you need is pressing a button on the dashboard, and it all gets stated. The service does not only support the pull, the KeyCDN grabbing content from your origin server when needed only but also the origin push. The uploading of content. It has the best features that help it optimize its performance. 

The good thing with the use of the KeyCDN is that it has the right security features meaning you can fully be protected from any form of attack. There are some features such as the shared SSL and customs Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates. This plays a crucial role in mitigating the DDoS attacks, and you can block the bad bots with a click using the hot block linking. 

The service offers a lot of settings and tweaks that help in the customization of operations. There is a more extraordinary ability to create the custom caching rules and the automation of everything using the API. 

These abilities to view the raw logs from the web could help in the identification of problems. Also, you can consider streaming live to your desired destination of choice but at an additional cost. 

Performance (4.5/5)

KeyCDN Review

People will always share their opinions on social media each day. These tweets and chats can be monitored about the KeyCDN and applied sentiment analysis algorithms identified. These tweets can then be classified as either negative or positive. And the fact is that every review is usually in a person’s opinion. The information that is gathered can be used for approval rating. 

When it comes to rating the best and fastest CDN, it could be that challenging. There are a lot of factors that are involved. First, is your clients’ location and spread across the globe and the web applications that one uses? More so, how often you refresh your files, your caching, and any bonus optimization the CDN Can offer. 

When it comes to improving your KeyCDN website performance, it is ideal that you first pinpoint the possible areas where problems arise from. There are a lot of reasons that can cause your website performance to be poor and thus slow. Therefore, to analyze your website’s performance, it is essential to pay attention to these critical problems. 

Checking the KeyCDN performance, you can consider using various tools;

KeyCDN Website speed test tool:

This is the best tool that gives users the ability to test their website speed from various locations. From the waterfall view, you can have the best information regarding loading the order of the assets. Also, clicking particular assets could reveal their request and response to headers. 

The google page speed insights:

This website analyzer grades sites with a 0-100 score. Usually, the given score is based on the number of passed rules, including everything from js, CSS, browser caching, render block resources, and the optimized images. 

The Pingdom website speed test:

This tool provides the same view as the KeyCDNs speed test tool. The extra thing it does is provide additional information such as history, page analysis, and performance grade.  

Support (4.6/5)

keycdn tools

When dealing with the websites, there are times that you will need assistance due to various problems. KeyCDN could also experience some issues that will need assistance. When you face these challenges, then it could be ideal to request support from the right team. KeyCDN has the right team of experts who operate on a 24/7 basis.  

They offer the best support via telephone, skype, or email. The good thing with the support team that KeyCDN has is that they are well trained, skilled, and equipped to provide you with all kinds of solutions to problems that you encounter. When it comes to the KeyCDN support system, the best part is that you do not have to wait too long before your issues or queries are addressed. The users get the reported feedback from the support tickets within the minimal time possible. 

This is one of the key things that give the KeyCDN a great hand over the other service providers. The other providers could even take hours or minutes to respond to issues. With the KeyCDN, there is also a community forum where one can be a participant. Here one can be able to find the right answers to their questions. 

KeyCDN has a broad knowledge base that is regularly updated. It features everything from technical questions to troubleshooting pointers to know how to guide techniques and everything concerning the CDN users. However, the KeyCDN provider you choose needs the right skills and information required to install, set up, and activate your services. 

Also, the support team that you need is one that you can have quick access to. This will give you peace of mind and the possible solutions to your issues on time, especially during emergencies. They offer help during billing, downtime, and cyber-attacks, and even during installation. 

Pricing (4.6/5)

KeyCDN offers two types of pricing strategies for the CDNS-Pull and push. For the pull zones, the pricing strategy is usually for the bandwidth only. These accounts generally allow up to three zones, with each additional zone costing $1 each. 

Under this pricing, there is usually no charge for requests. Therefore, unlike the enterprise level CDNS like Amazon and Google cloud, the pricing structure for the KeyCDN is simple and easy to understand. 

The main aim of having this KeyCDN review is to understand better what this CDN provider offers in terms of pricing and features. The thing is that this system has the most impressive list of features, and when compared to the other service providers, it offers the best and fast loading capabilities. For premium CDN services, it provides minimal pricing. 

However, these costs will tend to vary between the different regions. Zones like the North American locations will have the lowest prices, $0.04 /GB. On the other hand, South America and Asia pacific could have almost double $0.10/GB and O.11/GB. Additional to these costs of bandwidth, push zones also charge for storage. The storage cost for the first 500 GB is $0.29 per month. 

Free Trial

More so, KeyCDN tends to calculate its usage based on credits. When you sign up for an account with the KeyCDN, you will get a 14-day free trial that allows free bandwidth. There is no credit charge for signing up. This is one quote that makes the KeyCDN a critical parameter to try out. However, to continue using the services after your free quota exhausts, you will need upgrading your account to enjoy the benefits continuously, 

KeyCDN Pricing Details
REGION FIRST 10 TB NEXT 40 TB NEXT 50 TB OVER 100 TB View Details
North America

Europe

$0.04/GB $0.03/GB $0.02/GB $0.01/GB Click here
Asia

Oceania

$0.10/GB $0.08/GB $0.04/GB $0.02/GB Click here
South Africa

South America

$0.11/GB $0.09/GB $0.06/GB $0.04/GB Click here

FAQs

  1. Login to your KeyCDN dashboard.
  2. Enter your Domain, Username, Email id, Password, and click.
  3. In the left navigation sidebar, click Zones.
  4. set up the custom CNAME.
  5. Enter Save
It will then take some time to get activated.
Pull Zone refers to the field of CDN services. It is the most widely-used zone type by the users around the globe. In this zone type, your files would be fetched from your origin server and would be cached to the edge server and served to the users.
Steps -
  1. Register and Login to the KeyCDN dashboard.
  2. Add details, like Domain, Username, Email id, Password, etc.
  3.  Select the "Zone Type".
  4. set up the custom "CNAME".
  5. Click Save.
Do I really need a CDN? Well, here is what you should take a look at. "CDN" helps to deliver content present on your server to the user servers in a more efficient and faster way. It ensures the site's stability and prevents the risk of traffic spikes. It delivers an overall better site performance.
Steps to add CDN to your WordPress Site -
  1. First, create your CDN pull zone.
  2. Log in to your WordPress dashboard.
  3. Go to the "Plugins".
  4. Search for WordPress Cache Plugin, for example- W3 Total Cache.
  5. After installation, activate the plugin.
  6. Go to the settings, click on the CDN tab.
  7. Paste the zone URL that you have created and copied from the KeyCDN dashboard.
  8. Enter Save.
Here is a side-by-side comparison of KeyCDN vs Cloudflare. According to the surveys and reviews, most of the users voted KeyCDN better than Cloudflare, as KeyCDN meets all of their needs. Here is a brief outlook - Pricing- Cloudflare entry-level - Free KeyCDN entry-level - $0.04/GB Bandwidth - Cloudflare - Unlimited bandwidth for $20/month KeyCDN - 500GB bandwidth for $20/month Coverages - Cloudflare - 75 Countries KeyCDN - 30 Countries Ease-of-Use - KeyCDN better than Cloudflare

User Reviews

Marcus Brown

KeyCDN is Great
(5/5)

I have discovered KeyCDN to be a great, sensibly valued CDN. I likewise utilize their Cache Enabler module for WordPress, which offers superior and straightforwardness. A few times I required help, it was quick, useful, and amicable.
November 26, 2020
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Bottom line

Globally, there has been a very high expectation for getting the fast-loading content an all-time high. The fact is that most of the users expect content delivery at high speeds. There is a high-performance content delivery network that can help meet the demands that are currently faced and the future. When it comes to making the right decisions regarding CDN providers, there are two features that one can consider knowing the place where your visitors come from and the key features that are needed.

Based on the information above, KeyCDN provides users with a list of features at the most competitive prices. Hence, whether you are a small business or large business operator or thinking of a start-up, KeyCDN is worth giving a trial. It will not only fit your CDN provider's needs but also provide the best experience ever.

Mashum Mollah

Mashum Mollah has been there in the blogging industry for over a decade. He has always believed that blogging holds the most potential in the digital marketing industry. With years of research, he has created some of his best blogging practices, which have helped him establish himself in the industry as a Blogging Engineer. Now he is on a mission to help others and spread the concept of Blogging Engineer.