What are the CDN's defaults?
Static files are cached by all regions for 31 days. You can override this duration by setting a Cache-Control header via the headers property in a vercel.json file.
Dynamic responses (from Serverless Functions) are not cached unless they contain a Cache-Control header with specific directives (e.g. s-maxage).
You can read more about this in the caching documentation.
How can I control the CDN and what caching headers (and values) it accepts?
You can control how the CDN caches your responses by setting a Cache-Control header.
What if I am using a CDN like Akamai, Fastly, Cloudflare?
The transition is painless. All you have to do is configure DNS records to our DNS infrastructure.
How do I purge the CDN cache?
You can create a new deployment to invalidate the cache for your Preview and Production Deployments. Content will remain cached for preview URLs until it expires.
What are the limits of the CDN cache?
You can read more about our CDN's caching limits in the caching documentation.
Can I run the CDN logic on my local development machine?
Using the vercel dev command via the Vercel CLI will allow you to run your applications with additional CDN logic.
How exactly does stale-while-revalidate work for the first and subsequent requests?
The first request is served synchronously. Subsequent requests are served from the cache and revalidated asynchronously if the cache is "stale".
You can read more about this in the stale-while-revalidate documentation.
What is the relation between the seconds on s-maxage and stale-while-revalidate?
s-maxage is the number of seconds a response is considered "fresh" by the CDN. After this period ends, the CDN will serve the "stale" response from the edge until the response is asynchronously revalidated with a "fresh" response to your Serverless Function.
Is my browser aware of stale-while-revalidate? Should I expect content-flash if yes?
We strip the stale-while-revalidate directive from your Cache-Control so browsers do not get it. This will allow you to deliver the latest content to your visitors right after creating a new deployment (as opposed to waiting for browser cache to expire).
What locations does the CDN cache in?
You can find the full list of our regions in the regions documentation.
Can I redirect users to a specific region?
Users who visit your deployments will automatically use the region that is geographically closest to them.
Will I get charged for CDN traffic in a DDoS event?
You will not get charged for CDN traffic in a DDoS event. There are measures in place to detect and mitigate bad actors in a DDoS event.
Is there an image optimization service on your CDN?
Yes, Vercel supports Next.js' Image Optimization with zero configuration.
How do I use Cloudflare over your CDN (disable it)?
You will need to use Origin Control: Off along with other custom caching rules in Cloudflare. You will also need to set s-maxage to 0 with the headers property in a vercel.json file to disable any caching from our CDN.
When you create a new deployment, you will have to find a way to purge Cloudflare's cache.