Static content

Static content refers to files that can be delivered without modifications or processing. Static content is also known as static resources. Therefore, the static resources that Alibaba Cloud Content Delivery Network (CDN) delivers for different requests are the same. Static content includes images, video content, HTML documents, CSS stylesheets, JavaScript files, software installation packages, APK files, and compressed package files.

Alibaba Cloud CDN caches resources on CDN nodes to accelerate content delivery. For example, Alibaba Cloud CDN caches static content from your server on CDN nodes. When users request the static content, they do not need to connect to the origin server. Instead, users can retrieve the content cached on CDN nodes. This way, Alibaba Cloud CDN reduces workloads on origin servers.

Dynamic content

Dynamic content refers to any content that varies based on requests. Dynamic content is also known as dynamic resources. Each request retrieves different dynamic content. Dynamic content includes ASP, JSP, PHP, Perl and CGI files, API requests, and database interactive requests on a website.

When users request this dynamic content, CDN nodes redirect the requests to your server. The server dynamically generates responses and returns them to the users. Therefore, acceleration based on CDN nodes is not applicable to dynamic content delivery. Alibaba Cloud CDN cannot cache dynamic content that is dynamically updated. CDN nodes redirect requests for dynamic content to origin servers. Delivery of dynamic content is not accelerated.

If your website or application host a large amount of dynamic content and you want to accelerate the delivery of various API requests, we recommend that you use Dynamic Route for CDN (DCDN). DCDN can accelerate the delivery of both dynamic and static content. The acceleration strategy is:
  • Alibaba Cloud CDN accelerates the delivery of static content.
  • DCDN accelerates the delivery of dynamic content based on techniques such as routing and transmission optimization. This way, the delivery of both static and dynamic content is accelerated.