Using multiple CDNs at once is now a common strategy for large platforms. Known as Multi-CDN, it provides resilience, global reach, and performance tuning beyond what any single provider can guarantee. This article traces the history of Multi-CDN, from early experiments with failover to modern platforms that automate real-time traffic steering across many networks.

Early beginnings: redundancy and failover

The first Multi-CDN setups in the early 2000s were crude but effective. Enterprises with global audiences, especially in media and finance, sometimes contracted with more than one provider. Typically, they designated a “primary” CDN and configured a “backup” to handle traffic if the main service failed.

These early failover systems were often manual, triggered by operators updating DNS records during outages. Some used round-robin DNS, alternating requests between providers, but without regard for performance or capacity. The primary goal was redundancy — ensuring that if Akamai, Limelight, or another vendor suffered an outage, traffic could be shifted elsewhere.

The rise of performance-based routing

By the mid-2000s, content delivery had become mission-critical for streaming, gaming, and global e-commerce. Outages were costly, and regional performance varied widely between providers. Customers wanted more than static failover: they wanted traffic dynamically steered to the best provider in each moment.

This created a market for performance-based routing. The idea was to measure real-time conditions across multiple CDNs — latency, throughput, availability — and send users to the provider performing best for their location and ISP. This was the beginning of true Multi-CDN.

Cedexis and real-time steering

Founded in 2009, Cedexis was the best-known pioneer of real-time Multi-CDN routing. Its Radar product crowdsourced performance data from millions of user devices, measuring path quality across ISPs and CDNs. Its Openmix service then used those measurements to make real-time traffic decisions.

Cedexis enabled companies to go beyond simple redundancy. A user in Paris could be steered to Akamai if it was fastest there, while a user in São Paulo might be routed to Limelight or Level3. If one provider degraded, traffic would flow to another within seconds.

The model proved attractive for video streaming, gaming, and large-scale media, where global performance mattered. Cedexis was acquired by Citrix in 2018, but its legacy defined the Multi-CDN industry.

Turnkey pioneers: TurboBytes and Warpcache

Around the same time, early turnkey Multi-CDN platforms appeared. TurboBytes offered a managed service that combined multiple CDNs under one contract. It used real-user monitoring (RUM) to track performance at the country level, routing traffic to the best-performing provider in each geography.

Warpcache, founded in 2015 by Wouter Spee and Thijs de Zoete, took the concept further. It layered multiple CDNs into a unified service and used Cedexis data to guide routing. Crucially, Warpcache operated not only at the country level but also at the ASN (Autonomous System Number) level, giving finer-grained control over delivery paths.

In 2019, Warpcache was acquired by System73. The independent Multi-CDN product was discontinued, and the warpcache.com domain later redirected to SimpleCDN, though this was unrelated. Since Cedexis itself later became defunct, it is unlikely that Warpcache’s original technology survives inside System73 today.

These pioneers showed that Multi-CDN could be more than contracts and manual routing. They provided the blueprint for managed platforms that integrated measurement, steering, and vendor abstraction into one package.

Adoption by streaming and gaming

By the 2010s, Multi-CDN was a mainstream strategy for industries with high traffic and global reach. Video streaming platforms — Netflix, Hulu, BBC iPlayer, Twitch — all used multiple providers. Live sports events, which attract millions of simultaneous viewers, often contracted with three or more CDNs for redundancy and load sharing.

Gaming publishers also embraced Multi-CDN. Launches of popular titles or large software patches could create sudden multi-terabit surges. By distributing traffic across several providers, companies avoided overloading any single network and improved download times worldwide.

Integration with China and regional coverage

Multi-CDN also became a way to handle geographic fragmentation. Coverage in China, Russia, and parts of the Middle East required local providers such as ChinaCache, ChinaNetCenter, and Quantil. Global providers often lacked licenses or strong performance in these markets. By combining global and regional CDNs, companies achieved coverage that no single provider could offer.

From DIY to modern platforms

Managing multiple CDNs required expertise, contracts, and monitoring. Enterprises often built teams dedicated to vendor management and routing policy. This complexity created demand for turnkey Multi-CDN platforms.

Later entrants like Mlytics and IORiver expanded on what TurboBytes and WarpCache had pioneered. They offered unified dashboards to control many providers, integrated performance monitoring, and automated cost optimization. Some bundled contracts, allowing customers to access multiple CDNs without signing with each provider directly.

These modern platforms lowered the barrier for smaller organizations to adopt Multi-CDN, much as pay-as-you-go models had once democratized single-CDN usage.

Challenges and tradeoffs

Despite the benefits, Multi-CDN also brought challenges. Different providers had different APIs, caching behaviors, and reporting formats. Consistency was difficult. Complex routing policies sometimes caused instability. Costs could be higher, as customers paid for multiple contracts and needed specialized expertise to manage them.

Still, the tradeoff was often worthwhile. For businesses that could not tolerate downtime — streaming services, global retailers, online gaming — the performance and reliability gains outweighed the complexity.

Today’s Multi-CDN landscape

By the 2020s, Multi-CDN had become common for large-scale platforms. Real-time steering based on performance and cost was well established. Some CDNs themselves integrated with competitors, acknowledging customer demand for diversity. Others positioned as “Multi-CDN by default,” offering managed services that included several underlying networks.

Multi-CDN is no longer an experimental strategy but an accepted best practice for high-traffic, global services. For smaller sites, it may be unnecessary, but for platforms where availability and quality of experience are paramount, Multi-CDN is standard.

Multi-CDN evolved from crude failover setups to sophisticated, data-driven routing platforms. Cedexis popularized real-time steering, TurboBytes and WarpCache pioneered turnkey services, and later platforms lowered the barrier to entry. The story reflects the same arc as CDNs themselves: from premium niche to mainstream infrastructure.
For the broader context, see the History of CDNs.