4 ms·

Setting up a CDN is free, quick and easy. It should be the default if you're deploying a static site. Definitely not overengineering.

faangsticle 3y ago
If you consider sharing the browsing habits of all of your visitors with Cloudflare to be free, then yes.
- ZephyrBlu 3y ago
  Use Cloudflare? I would never! My blog uses a custom CDN I wrote in Assembly for maximum performance. I also wrote a custom browser (Guess what language) so my visitors browsing habits weren't shared with Google via Chrome. I will go to the ends of the Earth to protect my users' browsing habits.
  - faangsticle 3y ago
    [flagged]
mooreds 3y ago
I didn't find it to be free, quick or easy, but then again, I used Cloudfront and had Wordpress on the backend. This was also a few years ago; wrote about it briefly here: https://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/2565 https://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/2565
- vbezhenar 3y ago
  Today I configured setup for my website (which is empty, I'm more interested with configuring things than writing actual stuff). All I did: set up github pages (few clicks in repository settings) and set up cloudflare DNS with "proxied" setting (which is default one). So now my empty website vbezhenar.com is protected by mighty cloudflare and it took very low effort and zero dollars to do so. You might want to check it out.
  - mooreds 3y ago
    That's great. I have over 1000 posts on my WP blog, so moving it is a bit more involved. But if you're starting out today, what you suggested seems great!
avgcorrection 3y ago
Well, all I know is that there must be a long tail of websites that will never need it.
- ZephyrBlu 3y ago
  Sure, but in the scenario discussed (Post hitting top of HN) a CDN is like insurance.
hamandcheese 3y ago
I respectfully disagree, depending on a closed source, for profit megacorp should not be the default, certainly not for a hobby-scale project.
- ZephyrBlu 3y ago
  I'm curious why you think that. From my perspective, you should do what is best for yourself and your users. I think you should definitely be leveraging things like CDNs that are low effort and high impact to save yourself time and help your users. Not using things that are closed source and from megacorps feels like a luxury that a lot of people cannot afford. Not monetarily, but in terms of time and effort. When I'm working on a side project I want to remove all the friction I possibly can so I stay motivated and keep working on the project.
  - hamandcheese 3y ago
    First, to be clear, I mean this within the context of self-hosting. If you want to optimize your time by not self hosting, by all means, do it! But if you have decided to self host, I would suggest reaching for one of the many FOSS caching reverse proxy solutions first.

faangsticle 3y ago

If you consider sharing the browsing habits of all of your visitors with Cloudflare to be free, then yes.

ZephyrBlu 3y ago
Use Cloudflare? I would never! My blog uses a custom CDN I wrote in Assembly for maximum performance. I also wrote a custom browser (Guess what language) so my visitors browsing habits weren't shared with Google via Chrome. I will go to the ends of the Earth to protect my users' browsing habits.
- faangsticle 3y ago
  [flagged]

mooreds 3y ago

I didn't find it to be free, quick or easy, but then again, I used Cloudfront and had Wordpress on the backend. This was also a few years ago; wrote about it briefly here: https://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/2565 https://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/2565

vbezhenar 3y ago
Today I configured setup for my website (which is empty, I'm more interested with configuring things than writing actual stuff). All I did: set up github pages (few clicks in repository settings) and set up cloudflare DNS with "proxied" setting (which is default one). So now my empty website vbezhenar.com is protected by mighty cloudflare and it took very low effort and zero dollars to do so. You might want to check it out.
- mooreds 3y ago
  That's great. I have over 1000 posts on my WP blog, so moving it is a bit more involved. But if you're starting out today, what you suggested seems great!

avgcorrection 3y ago

Well, all I know is that there must be a long tail of websites that will never need it.

ZephyrBlu 3y ago
Sure, but in the scenario discussed (Post hitting top of HN) a CDN is like insurance.

hamandcheese 3y ago

I respectfully disagree, depending on a closed source, for profit megacorp should not be the default, certainly not for a hobby-scale project.

ZephyrBlu 3y ago
I'm curious why you think that. From my perspective, you should do what is best for yourself and your users. I think you should definitely be leveraging things like CDNs that are low effort and high impact to save yourself time and help your users. Not using things that are closed source and from megacorps feels like a luxury that a lot of people cannot afford. Not monetarily, but in terms of time and effort. When I'm working on a side project I want to remove all the friction I possibly can so I stay motivated and keep working on the project.
- hamandcheese 3y ago
  First, to be clear, I mean this within the context of self-hosting. If you want to optimize your time by not self hosting, by all means, do it! But if you have decided to self host, I would suggest reaching for one of the many FOSS caching reverse proxy solutions first.