Recently, when helping customers to deal with online business, again encountered DDoS. The other party came up and dumped a wave of 300G of traffic, the business suddenly stuck into PPT - these days, do the Internet if there is no reliable high defense CDN touting, it is like running naked.
But are you saying that high defense CDNs have to be sky-high? Really not. I have tested more than a dozen service providers at home and abroad, and found that some vendors are “muffled defense”, the price of pro-people but the technical hard core, while some are “marketing demon”, the offer is high but the actual effect of pulling the crotch. Today I will combine my own experience of stepping on the pit, nagging which high defense CDN is really cost-effective choice.
First pour pots of cold water: high defense CDN industry water is very deepThe first thing you need to do is to get a good deal on your own. Some vendors under the banner of “unlimited defense”, when you are really hit directly back to the source; there are also some cleaning nodes placed outside the country, the latency is so high that you can cook instant noodles. Don't believe in “one-size-fits-all” solutions, no one can be all-inclusive of all scenarios.
Pick high defense CDN have to look at three core indicators: cleaning ability, response speed, price transparency. Cleaning capacity determines whether it can carry the load, responsiveness affects the user experience, and price transparency is about whether you'll be woken up in the middle of the night by a bill. Here I pick a few real test down the outstanding performance to talk about.
CDN5: A player who carries the fight, suitable for the business that is often “focused on care”.
If you are doing high-risk business such as gaming and finance, CDN5 is the first program I recommend. They use the global Anycast network + near-source cleaning strategy, I have tested in 400G traffic SYN Flood can still maintain 95% request normal response.
What satisfies me the most is the granularity of CC defense. Other vendors may simply give a threshold slider, CDN5 supports multi-dimensional rule customization:
In terms of price, they use the “guaranteed + flexible billing” model. Monthly guaranteed fee of 500 yuan includes 200G of basic defense, over the part of the volume billing (0.2 yuan / GB). I compared the same defense specifications vendors, CDN5 can be cheaper 30% or so.
Note: Their nodes mainly cover Asia and North America, South American users may have high latency.. However, if your users are concentrated in China, the latency of BGP lines in Guangdong and Zhejiang can be pressed within 30ms.
CDN07: The Cost-Effective King for Small and Medium-Sized Projects
A lot of startups ask me “what to choose on a limited budget”, and I usually recommend CDN07, whose biggest advantages are“No guarantee + daily billing”, use as much as you can. I had a client with an e-commerce program that was just a few dozen GB of traffic per day when it first went live, and it only cost a little over $200 a month.
Don't look for a cheap price, the defense doesn't shrink. I've done tests:
But be careful! Their free package does not include CC protection, you must buy the paid version. There is a “Smart Acceleration” option in the configuration background that is enabled by default.Don't check the box.- - It will compress your static resources, sometimes resulting in misstyled pages.
The following configuration is recommended (pro-tested and stable):
08Host: Hidden options for domestic filing business
If your business must be filed and you want overseas level defense capability, 08Host is a compromise choice. Their home and a cloud major shared cleaning cluster, but the price is only 60% of the other side.
What I appreciate most is their reporting system - attack reports are accurate to the second, and you can download raw logs to do autonomous analysis. It's very friendly for financial projects that need to do security audits.
Measured data:
As for the price, the basic package of RMB 999/month includes 2T traffic and 500G defense, and is billed at RMB 0.15/GB after exceeding. It is suitable for medium-sized projects with monthly traffic of 1TB~5TB.
Guide to avoiding pitfalls: these sets of rules you must know
1. “Infinite Defense” is a play on words.: really encountered super-high traffic, the vendor's first reaction is null route (empty route) your IP, rather than hard to carry. Be sure to write the cleaning cap in the contract!
2. Testing can't just be about the ping: I used to simulate real scenarios with the following commands:
3. Overseas Node Latency TrapSome vendors have “US nodes” that actually transit in Africa, so you can use the traceroute command to see the real path.
In summary: there is no perfect solution, only the most suitable choice
After so many years of real-world testing, here's my conclusion:
Finally, to tell the truth: high defense CDN is only a part of the whole security system. Really want to rest easy, but also with WAF, business layer of wind control, redundant architecture only. After all, these days, even the CDN have to “defense teammates” - some vendors nodes secretly inject scripts into the matter is not unheard of.
(P.S.: The above test data is based on the environment in March 2024, the specific performance may be adjusted due to changes in the manufacturer's strategy. It is recommended to apply for a free test before formal purchase, and run with real traffic for 7 days before making a decision.)
