Differences between Rackspace CDN and Rackspace Cloud Files
Last updated on: 2022-05-05
Authored by: Rackspace Support
Rackspace Cloud Files is storage service that enables users to store an unlimited number of files and to publish and distribute content behind a content delivery network (CDN). Rackspace CDN is a service to manage your CDN-enabled domains and the origins and assets associated with those domains.
Following are some differences between Rackspace CDN and Cloud Files:
- Users of Rackspace CDN specify the origins that host the content, and the CDN pulls the content from these origins. Origins can be dedicated servers, cloud servers, cloud load balancers, a Cloud Files container, or servers hosted outside of Rackspace. Users of Cloud Files can enable a CDN on a container, distributing the contents of that container to the CDN’s edge nodes.
- Rackspace CDN has no limit on purges. Cloud Files limits the number of purges per account, per day to 25.
- Rackspace CDN does not yet support streaming video from Cloud Files However, serving other CDN-enabled containers or serving CDN-enabled content over SSL/TLS is possible. Cloud Files supports streaming video from CDN-enabled containers as well as serving CDN-enabled content over SSL/TLS. Note: Cloud Files streaming will be decommissioned on July 31, 2022.
These, and other differences, are summarized in the following table:
| Rackspace CDN | Cloud Files CDN | |
|---|---|---|
| Origin | Any public web server | Cloud Files CDN-enabled Container |
| Custom domains | Customizable for HTTP and HTTPS (HTTPS via SAN or Custom SSL) | CNAME for HTTP only |
| Caching rules (TTL) | Customizable | Flat per Container |
| Force Refresh Content | Purge (per file) Invalidate (Simple RegEX) |
Purge (per file) Limit 25 per day |
| Restrictions | HTTP Referrer, GeoLocation, IP Address | N/A |
| Streaming | No support is provided, with exception to CDN-enabled content over SSL/TSL | Chunked encoded streaming and iOS streaming available until July 31, 2022 |
