Home / Questions / 15432
Accepted
Ricardo A
Asked: 2020-06-30 11:36:51 +0800 CST 2020-06-30 11:36:51 +0800 CST

What is the difference between putting a CDN link and downloading?

  • 772

What I mean is that I have seen for example in Bootstrap you can either download it and put a like mini link in your text editor or you can just put a cdn link although it is a bit longer, and I have seen the same with Jquery , you can choose between putting a cdn link and downloading it. What is the difference and which one is more recommended to use?

jquery

2 Answers

  1. First of all, neither one nor the other is recommended, it really depends on each project.

    The other answer, which was accepted, explains two points that are not entirely true:

    • Using a CDN does NOT guarantee that the site will load faster. The CDN servers may be down or the connection to them very slow, among other possible reasons.

    • Both files stored on the same server as the page/website and a CDN will take a while to load, even 1ms, but both take time.

    There is a similar question on SO in English with slightly more detailed answers, which I translate below:

    Advantages of using CDN

    • Increases parallelism (being able to make requests to several servers at the same time).
    • It increases the possibility that the file is already in the browser's cache.
    • The actual download size of the file will be as small as possible.
    • Reduce the bandwidth used by your server.
    • Whoever visits your website will receive a closer response (geographically speaking).

    When not to use a CDN

    • For an intranet whose web server is on the same network as the visitors.
    • When you want to customize said resource (jQuery in this case).
    • Whether the web application should be able to work "offline".

    Another point to keep in mind is that it may be a better idea to concatenate all the scripts and put them in a single file (example scripts.js), than to use a CDN, due to latency issues on certain devices, although apparently this is no longer the case. a problem with HTTP2.

    • 16
  2. Best Answer

    The difference lies in the loading time of your site.

    • If you use one, CDNyour site does not load faster, the difference is very little.
    • If you use your server files (downloaded bootstrap) it may take a while to load

    Now if it happens that the link or file has been damaged or moved
    CDN:

    • You do not have control of the file, therefore your website will give errors.

    Download:

    • You can re-upload or move them to their proper folder.
    • You have control of those files on the server
    • -5