Does my website need a CDN?

A Content Delivery Network is worthwhile above all when your visitors are geographically dispersed. The CDN keeps static resources like images, CSS and JavaScript on servers in many countries and serves them from the nearest location. The effect is a shorter distance and therefore lower latency, which is especially noticeable for the LCP resource.

For a regional website with predominantly German visitors and a server located in Germany, the added benefit is limited, here caching and image optimization usually achieve more. For international websites or shops with a worldwide customer base, a CDN can cut load times for distant visitors by 40 to 60 percent (project experience). So we do not recommend a CDN by default but assess in the performance analysis whether your visitor distribution justifies it.