Company snapshot
| Category | BelugaCDN | Hetzner |
|---|---|---|
| Status | active | active |
| Founded | — | — |
| Headquarters | — | — |
| Website | — | — |
| Docs | — | — |
Overview
BelugaCDN is a content delivery network (CDN) provider founded in 2014, designed to accelerate website content delivery globally at a low cost. It operates a dual-stack IPv4 and IPv6 network, focusing on delivering static content like images and videos to users across various devices. The service is utilized by small to medium-sized businesses, e-commerce platforms, and media sites seeking affordable CDN solutions. BelugaCDN emphasizes straightforward caching, real-time analytics, and easy integration with existing web infrastructure. The company is headquartered in Miami, Florida, and operates as a subsidiary of Xcitium following its acquisition in 2018.
Hetzner, founded in 1997, is a German hosting provider offering cloud servers, dedicated servers, and storage solutions. It operates data centers in Germany, Finland, the United States, and Singapore, serving developers, SMBs, and enterprises. Known for cost-effective pricing, Hetzner provides scalable infrastructure for web hosting, applications, and storage-heavy workloads. While it does not market a traditional CDN, its cloud and object storage services support content delivery use cases, particularly for European customers. Hetzner’s customer base includes startups, developers, and businesses prioritizing affordability and performance.
Network & Architecture
BelugaCDN maintains 28 points of presence (POPs) across five continents, with 9 high-capacity “SuperPOPs” in key locations such as New York, Miami, Dallas, San Jose, Seattle, Chicago, London, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt. Its network is optimized for North America and Europe, with smaller-capacity POPs in Asia, Latin America, and Oceania, including São Paulo, Bangalore, Singapore, and Sydney. The provider uses proxy-based authorization and a private high-speed global network to ensure low-latency content delivery. Plans to upgrade Bangalore and Singapore POPs to SuperPOPs were noted in 2017, but no recent updates confirm completion. Limitations include limited presence in China and the Middle East, which may impact performance for users in those regions.
Hetzner operates data centers in Nuremberg and Falkenstein (Germany), Helsinki (Finland), Ashburn (Virginia, USA), Hillsboro (Oregon, USA), and Singapore. Specific POP counts are not publicly detailed, but its infrastructure leverages high-speed connectivity within Europe, with extensions to North America and Asia-Pacific. The network is optimized for low-latency delivery in EMEA, with growing presence in APAC and NA. Limitations include less coverage in LATAM, Africa, and the Middle East compared to global CDNs like Cloudflare or Amazon CloudFront. Object Storage supports S3-compatible APIs, enabling content delivery for static assets.
Feature comparison
| Feature | BelugaCDN | Hetzner |
|---|---|---|
waf | ✗ | ✗ |
bot_mitigation | ✗ | ✗ |
ddos | ✓ | ✓ |
rate_limit | ✓ | ✗ |
http3_quic | ✓ | ✗ |
tls13 | ✓ | ✓ |
tiered_cache | ✗ | ✗ |
origin_shield | ✓ | ✗ |
instant_purge | ✓ | ✗ |
stale_while_revalidate | ✓ | ✗ |
stale_if_error | ✓ | ✗ |
image_optimization | ✗ | ✗ |
video_vod | ✓ | ✗ |
video_live | ✓ | ✗ |
drm | ✗ | ✗ |
hls_dash_packaging | ✗ | ✗ |
websockets | ✓ | ✗ |
signed_urls | ✓ | ✗ |
edge_compute | ✗ | ✗ |
functions | ✗ | ✗ |
kv_storage | ✗ | ✗ |
api_first | ✓ | ✓ |
realtime_logs | ✓ | ✗ |
log_push | ✓ | ✗ |
terraform | ✗ | ✓ |
Legend: ✓ = Supported, ✗ = Not supported, — = Not listed
Pricing
BelugaCDN operates on a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) model with no long-term contracts, starting at $5 per month for 500 GB of traffic at $0.01 per GB for North America and Europe. Higher-volume plans reduce costs to $0.005 per GB, with special pricing for enterprise users exceeding 10 TB monthly. A free trial of the Pro Plan is available. Request overages cost $0.0035 per 10,000 requests, and ingress costs are not charged. Full pricing details are available at https://www.belugacdn.com/pricing/.
Hetzner uses a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) model with no long-term commitments, appealing to SMBs and developers. Cloud server pricing starts at €3.79/month for shared vCPU plans, and Object Storage begins at €4.29/month. No free tier is available, but pricing is transparent with per-GB rates for storage and traffic. For example, Object Storage costs €0.00429/GB/month. Full details at https://www.hetzner.com/cloud/pricing.
Integrations & DevEx
BelugaCDN offers a RESTful API for managing properties, purging content, and accessing analytics, making it developer-friendly. Real-time logs can be exported to Elastic Search or Redis, with 10 million requests per month included free. The Grafana App provides usage metrics visualization. No public documentation confirms Terraform or CI/CD integrations, nor specific migration tools from other CDNs. The intuitive UI simplifies setup and management for non-technical users.
Hetzner supports Terraform for infrastructure provisioning and offers a RESTful API for managing servers, storage, and DNS. SDKs are available for languages like Python and Go, facilitating automation. CI/CD integration is possible via APIs, though no specific plugins for tools like GitHub Actions are documented. The Hetzner Console provides a user-friendly interface for managing resources, with detailed documentation at https://docs.hetzner.com.
When it fits
- Small to medium-sized businesses needing an affordable CDN with PAYG pricing and no long-term commitments.
- Websites with traffic primarily in North America and Europe, leveraging BelugaCDN’s SuperPOPs for low-latency delivery.
- Developers seeking API-first access and real-time analytics for straightforward content delivery.
- Developers and SMBs need cost-effective cloud hosting or storage in EMEA with S3-compatible APIs.
- Projects require flexible, API-driven infrastructure with Terraform support.
- Workloads prioritize affordability and performance over extensive global CDN coverage.
When it doesn’t
- Organizations requiring extensive presence in China or the Middle East, where BelugaCDN lacks POPs.
- Users needing advanced video features like HLS/DASH packaging or DRM, which are not supported.
- Enterprises needing robust edge compute or managed WAF solutions, as BelugaCDN focuses on basic caching and delivery.
History & Notes
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