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Best answer by abhishekanand_

Hi @rama_krishnany 

CDNs primarily cache static assets generated by AEM, such as images, CSS, and JavaScript files. This offloads traffic from the AEM server and improves website loading speed for geographically dispersed users. While AEM itself doesn't directly manage CDNs, you can integrate AEM with external CDN providers like Akamai or Cloudflare


EDS offers content delivery capabilities similar to a CDN, but it also provides additional functionalities specific to AEM content:

  • Caches frequently accessed content fragments (modular pieces of content) for faster delivery.
  • Enables basic personalization rules to be executed at the edge server, reducing load on the AEM authoring environment.
  • Simplifies headless content delivery by providing a lightweight endpoint for APIs and other headless integrations.
  • EDS is well-suited for faster content delivery for AEM-generated content. Basic personalization rules closer to users a simpler approach for headless content delivery.

Feature AEM CDN AEM EDS

ProviderExternalBuilt-in
FocusStatic contentHybrid
CachingStatic assetsStatic assets & fragments
PersonalizationNoBasic at edge
HeadlessNoSimpler
ManagementExternalInternal

6 replies

abhishekanand_
Community Advisor
abhishekanand_Community AdvisorAccepted solution
Community Advisor
June 24, 2024

Hi @rama_krishnany 

CDNs primarily cache static assets generated by AEM, such as images, CSS, and JavaScript files. This offloads traffic from the AEM server and improves website loading speed for geographically dispersed users. While AEM itself doesn't directly manage CDNs, you can integrate AEM with external CDN providers like Akamai or Cloudflare


EDS offers content delivery capabilities similar to a CDN, but it also provides additional functionalities specific to AEM content:

  • Caches frequently accessed content fragments (modular pieces of content) for faster delivery.
  • Enables basic personalization rules to be executed at the edge server, reducing load on the AEM authoring environment.
  • Simplifies headless content delivery by providing a lightweight endpoint for APIs and other headless integrations.
  • EDS is well-suited for faster content delivery for AEM-generated content. Basic personalization rules closer to users a simpler approach for headless content delivery.

Feature AEM CDN AEM EDS

ProviderExternalBuilt-in
FocusStatic contentHybrid
CachingStatic assetsStatic assets & fragments
PersonalizationNoBasic at edge
HeadlessNoSimpler
ManagementExternalInternal
Abhishek Anand
    arunpatidar
    Community Advisor
    arunpatidarCommunity Advisor
    Community Advisor
    June 24, 2024

    CDN : A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a distributed network of servers designed to deliver web content efficiently to users based on their geographic location.

    EDS : Its not just a CDN but an environment which contains media bus/content bus to store content MD files and the assets, code bus contains the code and also invalidate with each changes. EDS contains 2 environments , Preview and Live.

     

    You can check more info here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hlqowj7WrmM 

    Arun Patidar
      h_kataria
      Community Advisor
      h_katariaCommunity Advisor
      Community Advisor
      June 24, 2024

      Are you really looking for a comparison between a CDN and Adobe's Edge delivery services ? 
      Those 2 are very different things and offer completely different functionalities. Others have already answered comparison between those two, so I will not get into that.
      But I am going to take a guess and assume you are probably looking for a comparison between a CDN and Edge computing which is a relatively more comparable scenario.
      The major difference is that Edge computing also helps in processing data rather than just storing it like a traditional CDN 
      Following articles provide very good explanation which you can look into
      https://ottverse.com/cdn-vs-edge-computing-differences-usecases/ 
      I might be wrong in my understanding of your question in which case, I apologize for creating confusion 🙂 

        kapil_rajoria
        Community Advisor
        kapil_rajoriaCommunity Advisor
        Community Advisor
        June 24, 2024

        @rama_krishnanyIn Layman terms, Adobe's Edge Delivery Services uses a special CDN (Edge Delivery) which specializes in very efficient and optimal content caching. Due to which, the websites hosted on Edge Delivery Services are able to achieve lighthouse scores of 99-100, even with images and videos of large size.

        We can also use our own alternate CDN. In Edge Delivery Services, it is recommended to layering it on top of Adobe’s CDN (Edge Delivery).

        For more info, Please check out the blog written by me:
        https://www.tothenew.com/blog/decoding-edge-delivery-service-aem-franklin-comprehensive-overview/

          Rohan_Garg
          Community Advisor
          Rohan_GargCommunity Advisor
          Community Advisor
          June 24, 2024

          Hi @rama_krishnany,

           

          With respect to EDS, AEM is an on origin service that you can plug into your existing CDN

           

          There are 4 layers to the overall composable architecture - 

          1. CDN, DNS, TLS certificates etc. which are customer specific infrastructure
          2. Adobe's Edge Compute Layer 
          3. Adobe's Storage Layer for Edge Delivery -  The storage layer is made up of Content Bus for structured and unstructured content, Media Bus for assets and media, and Code Bus for the code of the site.
          4. Your customer specific sources of content and code - This is where document based authoring comes into the picture.

          #2 and #3 make up the dual-stack architecture that serves content optimized for delivery.

          Please read the architectural documentation for EDS at EDS Architecture

           

          Hope this helps!

            M
            mohanbudda
            Level 2
            October 22, 2024

            External CDN (Cloudflare, Akamai, Fastly) can be used on top of EDS(Edge Delivery Services) CDN which is optional because EDS has a built in CDN in it.

            For Caching the content and delivering the pages to end user effectively we use CDN, again this is also optional when you are developing any website/web-app using AEM.

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