Using a CDN with your Trinico Cloud hosting

A CDN (Content Delivery Network) caches your static assets - images, CSS, JavaScript - on dozens of edge servers around the world. When a visitor in Pretoria loads your site, the images come from a server in Johannesburg instead of your origin server. The result: faster page loads, less bandwidth used by your hosting plan, and protection against traffic spikes.

Do you actually need a CDN?

Maybe. Trinico Cloud hosting in South Africa already gives SA visitors a sub-30 ms response time, so the latency benefit is small for SA-only traffic. CDN adds the most value when:

• You have international visitors (anywhere outside SA).
• You serve large static files (videos, downloads, design portfolios).
• You need DDoS protection.
• You want SSL/HTTPS with edge-level optimisation (HTTP/3, Brotli compression, image format conversion).

Recommended CDNs

• Cloudflare (Free tier) - by far the most popular. Free tier covers most small business needs, including unlimited bandwidth and basic DDoS protection. Edge locations in Johannesburg and Cape Town.
• BunnyCDN - cheap pay-as-you-go (typically a few dollars per month for a small site). Excellent SA points of presence.
• QUIC.cloud - integrates tightly with LiteSpeed Cache. Free tier available; designed for WordPress.

Setting up Cloudflare (the most common path)

1. Sign up for a free Cloudflare account at cloudflare.com.
2. Add your domain. Cloudflare scans your existing DNS records and shows you a list to confirm.
3. Cloudflare gives you two new nameservers (e.g. ada.ns.cloudflare.com, brad.ns.cloudflare.com).
4. Update your domain's nameservers at the registrar to those new Cloudflare nameservers. If your domain is registered with Trinico Cloud, do this in your client area → Domains → Nameservers.
5. Wait for propagation (4 to 24 hours). Cloudflare e-mails you when it activates.
6. In Cloudflare, enable Always Use HTTPS, Brotli compression, Auto Minify (CSS/JS only - HTML can break things).

Watch out for

• Mail breaks if you misconfigure DNS. Cloudflare imports your existing MX records but you must verify they were copied correctly. Test by sending yourself an e-mail after switching nameservers.
• SSL stops working. Set Cloudflare → SSL → "Full (strict)" mode if your origin already has a Let's Encrypt certificate (which Trinico Cloud sites do).
• Cached pages do not update. Use Cloudflare → Caching → "Purge Everything" after big content changes.

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