Understanding Dispatcher in Adobe Experience Manager (AEM)

[#1]

Understanding Dispatcher in Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) by Abhigyan Swaroop

Overview

Dive into the fundamentals of the AEM Dispatcher, Adobe Experience Manager’s essential tool for caching, load balancing, and security. This blog breaks down how the Dispatcher works, its key features, and best practices to optimize your AEM deployments for speed and reliability.

Q&A

Please use this thread to ask questions relating to this article

Link to Blog

https://abhigyanswaroop.medium.com/understanding-the-dispatcher-in-adobe-experience-manager-aem-096b...

[#2]

Thanks @Shashi_Mulugu for sharing this article, which talks about breaking down the fundamentals of the AEM Dispatcher so clearly. I especially liked how this article highlighted its role not just in caching, but also in balancing performance with security. It’s a good reminder that Dispatcher is more than just a speed booster.

One question for you: In real-world AEM projects, what’s been the most challenging aspect for you: configuring Dispatcher caching rules effectively, managing cache invalidation, or fine-tuning security filters?

[#3]

Hello @kautuk_sahni , 

All three matter. Which one feels most challenging depends on how system runs and what use-case we are addressing:

1. Caching Rules: Hard when you mix classic pages and headless APIs, use personalization, or stack CDN + Dispatcher. Mistakes cause slow pages and extra load on publish.

2. Cache Invalidation: Hard at scale when content changes fast, pages pull in external or shared fragments, or teams keep doing full cache wipes. The real pain is knowing what to flush without blowing away everything.

3. Security Filters: Hard when the site is public, high traffic, and under constant probing. You need tight rules (methods, URLs, headers) without blocking real use. Also defend against cache poisoning and strange request patterns.

Other areas that matter just as much:

• Monitoring: See hit ratio (HTML vs assets), purge times, slow outliers.
• CDN Alignment: Shared TTL logic, tags/keys for group purges, stale-while-revalidate. 

Thanks, 
Abhigyan Swaroop.