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Frontend Glossary

Frontend engineering · Performance

CDN

Also called: Content Delivery Network, Edge cache, Edge nodes

Cache static assets on edge nodes closer to users to cut latency and offload the origin.

In detail

A CDN isn't "another origin"—it's a network of cache lockers. JS/CSS/images are often served from a nearby node, which lowers latency and origin load.

Frontend concerns: cache keys and hashed filenames (change content then change name for long-lived caching), Cache-Control, and usually short or negotiated caching for HTML. Misconfig yields "we shipped but users still see the old bundle."

It pairs with build/deploy pipelines: object storage + CDN is a common static hosting pattern.

Developer info
Term ID
eng-cdn
DOM selectors
No DOM cues. This concept isn't detected directly on a page.
Priority
1 · when several match at the same level, the higher priority wins
Version
v1 · updated Oct 5, 2026