CakePHP CDN integration in 2025

Why Use a CDN in CakePHP?

CakePHP is a powerful and flexible PHP framework designed for rapid development with built-in security and ORM capabilities. However, as web applications grow, serving static assets like images, CSS, and JavaScript directly from the server can lead to increased load times and reduced performance.

Integrating a Content Delivery Network (CDN) with CakePHP allows you to offload static assets to geographically distributed edge servers, reducing latency and improving page speed. This not only enhances the user experience but also helps with SEO rankings, as search engines favor fast-loading websites. Additionally, using a CDN can reduce bandwidth consumption and server load, making your CakePHP application more scalable and efficient.

Before you start

  • Before you take any steps please back up your files and database.
  • In the following, we will integrate a CDN service using the CDN domain cdn.mycompany.com Please visit the Services/How-To section to obtain your CDN domain.
  • To integrate a CDN service on https:// website the CDN service must have SSL enabled.
  • If your website embeds custom fonts then please first enable CORS for them.
  • Before you take any steps please make sure that your CDN domain is ready-to-use here.

Create CDN Static service

Please refer to Creating a CDN Static service for more details.

Enable CDN in CakePHP

Define CDN in Bootstrap

Add the following to the CakePHP's Config/bootstrap.php file.

Configure::write('App.imageBaseUrl', 'https://cdn.mycompany.com/img/');    
Configure::write('App.cssBaseUrl', 'https://cdn.mycompany.com/css/');    
Configure::write('App.jsBaseUrl', 'https://cdn.mycompany.com/js/');

Use the HTML helper for images

<?php echo $this->Html->image('image.jpeg', array('alt' => 'Image Alt')); ?>

will output

<img src="https://cdn.mycompany.com/img/image.jpeg" alt="Image Alt" />

Use the HTML helper for CSS

<?php echo $this->Html->css('style'); ?>

will output

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="https://cdn.mycompany.com/css/style.css" />

Use the HTML helper for JavaScripts

<?php echo $this->Html->script('script'); ?>

will output

<script type="text/javascript" src="https://cdn.mycompany.com/js/script.js"></script>

Notes

  • View HTML source code of your web pages to verify that you are using CDN, you should see source attribute of your images, CSS, JavaScript, etc. beginning with your CDN domain.
  • Don't see your CDN domain in the source code of your web pages? If your website is using any cache plug-in/mechanism then you might want to clear/flush its cache.
  • Having trouble with custom fonts? Please refer to Using custom fonts with CDN - setting CORS for more details.
  • Still having trouble? Check your CDN URLs using our content check tool or please refer to Debugging a CDN service for more hints.
  • Can you improve this guide or write a new one for software we haven't covered? Help us expand our CDN integrations section and earn $50 in CDN credit! Contact us to contribute.

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