MaxCDN is one of the Content Delivery Network service which have grown fast in the last few years. And MaxCDN is close to WordPress blogger as it is integrate very well and boost WordPress blog performance. You can use either W3 Total Cache or WordPress CDN to integrate it with MaxCDN. And MaxCDN´s Network uses the Packet Exchange backbone exclusively for content delivery, featuring direct reach to over 90+ countries and more than 900 peering partners worldwide. Packet Exchange is a robust privately owned network built with state of the art hardware including a full line-rate 10 Gigabit backbone with over 1 Tbps of transit and peering capacity.
As the competitor Google App Engine (GAE) also can be use as CDN. Read my previous article to create GAE as CDN for free. And everybody knows how big Google data center, it’s no doubt for it speed to deliver your content.
I did some test to compare MaxCDN vs Google App Engine with simple Benchmarking.
MaxCDN vs Google App Engine Testing tools:
1. Firebug 1.6.1
2. Host Tracker
Internet connection speed: downlink 2046 kbps (2Mbps) and Upling 512 kbps (0.5Mbps).
Web browser: Mozilla Firefox 3.6.13
Operating System: Windows Vista SP2
File Size: 1.01MB
MaxCDN vs Google App Engine Test Results::
1. Firebug
MaxCDN test result:
GAE test result:
2. Host Tracker
MaxCDN test result:
Test Result link.
GAE test result:
Test Result link.
MaxCDN vs Google App Engine Conclusion
Speed Test
When i test using Firebug which means using my own bandwidth and location. To download 1MB of file size using Google App Engine need 1m 29s and MaxCDN 1m 50s. GAE win by 21s over MaxCDN. But this result is subjective from my lacation. So i use the second tools (host-tracker.com) to download it from different location in the world. Here the test result from Host Tracker:
Maximum Speed
MaxCDN: 22868.66 KB/s from Dallas, TX, US
GAE: 2699.40 KB/s from Dallas, TX, US
Minimum Speed
MaxCDN: 164.44 KB/s from Bangkok, Thailand
GAE: 224.63 KB/s from Bangkok, Thailand
Overall Average Download time and Speed:
MaxCDN: 1.06 sec , 164.44 KB/s
GAE: 1.57 sec , 659.23 KB/s
Setup
MaxCDN: Very easy to setup. Just create a zone, make an Alias, then just use it. No need to upload or push files to MaxCDN. MaxCDN will automatically fetch it from your server and spread it to all nodes. Integrate very well using WordPress plugin such as W3 Total Cache or WordPress CDN.
GAE: Need some time to setup it properly, and you need manually upload it to Google App Engine, and everytime you change you need to reupload it. Not appropriate for testing environment.
Cost
MaxCDN: You need to pay $39.95 for open an account with 1TB bandwidth. And you need to recharge it for $99 for another 1TB, around 9.9 cents per GB.
GAE: No setup fees. It is free to use with a limit 1GB/day. And 12 cents for 1GB extension. You only pay the over quota limit only.
Overall
For a large websites which have large visitors, using MaxCDN will save your time to setup and have low rate cost. But for a medium to low size website, and have a budget limited, using Google App Engine will exactly boost your website performance for free.
