StackPath CDN (Legacy)

The performance increase as experienced by end users has been notable and helped improve our WebPageTest metrics across several categories for both performance and security. The EdgeRules are a nice addition for basic overrides of HTTP headers, cache control, and such.

They have solid content delivery infrastructure.

The products are less expensive than most and the service is outstanding. The products are good and have the ability to customize them to your particular needs. I own a full service web solutions company and work mainly with ecommerce websites and membership websites. When you deal with members and logins you must make sure that they are able to securely log in to the website and if you are dealing with ecommerce you must make sure that the transactions get through securely. Stackpath does all that and the content is delivered quickly. All of the websites we create are heavily built with multimedia, which means videos, and a lot of large graphics and files. Stackpath pushes these contents quickly and efficiently to the user every time.

My least favorite part of StackPath CDN is lack of logging and detailed reporting. We can see really basic metrics like cache hit ratio but cannot access detailed logs. This causes quite a blind spot in our ability to monitor for server-side events and security. (Prime examples of questions that we cannot answer: 1. Are any bad bots hitting my site? How many times has this PDF file been loaded?) There have been some limitations on what can be accomplished through EdgeRules, and at least one task was impossible without the support team intervening for no good reason that I could tell.

Trouble started when they single-sidedly announced a number of extra fees for energy surcharge and services that were specifically waived in my contract. They didn't provide any information on the costs before they started charging them, which was a breach of their own service terms which required a 30 days notice period for any price changes. So I used my right to object the price changes and get out of the contract early. Stackpath ignored my request for a week and then ultimately cancelled my whole user account with immediate effect even though I asked to leave by the end of the following month. They brought my whole organization to a complete halt with that unexpected shutdown. Fortunately I had already set up a backup CDN so I was able to switch over in relatively short time, but Stackpath's behavior can't be excused.

The setup can be a bit daunting and you will need to take your time to get it done correctly. However, the instructions are easy to follow and very detailed. I really like that StackPath has detailed instructions for just about any hosting environment you can think of.