Top Podcast CDNs by Episode Share (August 2023)

September 1, 2023

This is an archived version, the current version is here.

In our third and final installment observing the current state of the podcast world, as measured by number of new episodes produced in August 2023, we wanted to take a look at which underlying CDNs serve which episodes, and which podcast hosting companies use which network.

See our earlier analyses of podcast hosts by episode share and podcast trackers by episode share

In general, every podcast episode has a single url that tells the podcast client app what to play. However, this episode-level url might redirect several times in the course a single download request, through various first and third-party trackers, before ultimately landing at the internet host responsible for serving the audio file byte payload.

This last entity in the chain is what we are interested in for this analysis. Bandwidth costs are still non-trivial for hosting providers, hence most of them use a third-party content delivery network (CDN) to minimize this cost, and also to provide lower-latency global distribution.

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We started with our universe of every single new podcast episode published (about 1.7 million in August 2023), and mapped the underlying host of the last entity in the request chain to a known CDN or network provider. We were able to identify the underlying network for 99.42% of the universe.

First, a quick chart of the top podcast CDNs over time, based on share of new episodes every month.

And finally, the top 50 podcast content delivery networks ordered by share percentage of new episodes published during the month of August 2023.

If significant, we also list the top podcast hosting companies using each CDN, and the percentage of their own episodes allocated to the network.

1. Amazon Cloudfront · 48.84%

Amazon CloudFront is a content delivery network (CDN) operated by Amazon Web Services with over 275 edge locations on six continents.

For episodes that used Amazon Cloudfront, here are the top underlying podcast hosts, and percentage of their own episodes allocated to this network:

Spotify for Podcasters 100%
Spreaker 100%
Libsyn 100%
Soundcloud 100%
RSS.com 100%
Acast 99%
Simplecast 100%
iVoox 64%
Audioboom 100%
RedCircle 100%

2. Cloudflare · 15.23%

Cloudflare is an American web infrastructure and website security company that provides content delivery network (in over 250 cites in over 100 countries) and DDoS mitigation services. Cloudflare’s services sit between a website’s visitor and the customer’s hosting provider, acting as a reverse proxy for websites.

For episodes that used Cloudflare, here are the top underlying podcast hosts, and percentage of their own episodes allocated to this network:

Buzzsprout 100%
Transistor 100%
SoundOn 87%
Podomatic 100%
Castos 97%
SermonAudio 100%
Ausha 100%
stand.fm 100%
Kajabi 100%
PodServe.fm 100%

3. Highwinds · 6.93%

Highwinds CDN was acquired by StackPath CDN, which is powered by over 45 edge locations around the world.

For episodes that used Highwinds, here are the top underlying podcast hosts, and percentage of their own episodes allocated to this network:

4. OVH · 4.70%

OVH is a French cloud computing company which offers VPS, dedicated servers and other web services. As of 2016 OVH owned the world’s largest data center in surface area.

For episodes that used OVH, here are the top underlying podcast hosts, and percentage of their own episodes allocated to this network:

5. Hivelocity · 2.66%

Hivelocity provides Dedicated Servers, Colocation and Cloud Hosting services to customers from over 130 countries since 2002. Hivelocity operates 31 data centers on 4 continents.

For episodes that used Hivelocity, here are the top underlying podcast hosts, and percentage of their own episodes allocated to this network:

6. Akamai · 2.54%

Akamai is a global content delivery network (CDN), cybersecurity, and cloud service company, providing web and Internet security services. Akamai’s Intelligent Edge Platform is one of the world’s largest distributed computing platforms.

For episodes that used Akamai, here are the top underlying podcast hosts, and percentage of their own episodes allocated to this network:

Voice of America English News 100%
Deutschlandradio 100%
Radio France Internationale 100%
Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty 100%
NPR 44%
Westdeutscher Rundfunk 100%
BBC 41%
DR 100%
Radio Free Asia 100%
NHK 100%

7. Triton Digital · 2.32%

Triton Digital, formerly Triton Media Group, is a digital audio technology and advertising company based in Los Angeles.

8. Hetzner · 2.11%

Hetzner Online GmbH is an Internet hosting company and data center operator based in Gunzenhausen, Germany.

For episodes that used Hetzner, here are the top underlying podcast hosts, and percentage of their own episodes allocated to this network:

9. Fastly · 1.53%

Fastly’s CDN service follows the reverse proxy model, routing all website traffic through their own servers instead of providing a ‘cdn.mydomain.com’ address to store site-specific files. It then fetches content from the point of presence nearest to the location of the requesting user, out of nearly 60 worldwide.

For episodes that used Fastly, here are the top underlying podcast hosts, and percentage of their own episodes allocated to this network:

Squarespace 100%
ART19 100%
RTVE 100%
Atresmedia 100%
COPE 100%
RTP 100%
Faithlife Sermons 100%
CCMA 100%
Barstool Sports 100%
Audion 100%

10. Cogent · 1.09%

Cogent Communications is a multinational internet service provider based in the United States. Cogent’s primary services consist of Internet access and data transport, offered on a fiber optic, IP data-only network, along with colocation in data centers.

For episodes that used Cogent, here are the top underlying podcast hosts, and percentage of their own episodes allocated to this network:

Ximalaya 100%
Podbean 12%
WavPub 63%

11-50.

Analysis by John Spurlock

Thanks to the Podcast Index for crawling every podcast, and giving us a signal of when to check for new episodes.

Also thanks to the Open Podcast Analytics Working Group for maintaining a list of media url patterns and analytics services patterns. We’ve incorporated these patterns along with some of our own to come up with the host and analytics service identification and metadata for this ranking.

And thanks to folks working at various networks to help us identify each one as accurately as possible.

Updated 2023-09-01, with data for the month of August 2023.

Updated 2023-08-02, with data for the month of July 2023.

Updated 2023-07-01, with data for the month of June 2023.

Updated 2023-06-01, with data for the month of May 2023.

Updated 2023-05-05, with data for the month of April 2023.

Updated 2023-04-01, with data for the month of March 2023.

Updated 2023-03-01, with data for the month of February 2023.

Updated 2023-02-01, with data for the month of January 2023.

Updated 2023-01-02, with data for the month of December 2022.

Updated 2022-12-01, with data for the month of November 2022.

Updated 2022-11-03, with data for the month of October 2022.

Updated 2022-10-03, with data for the month of September 2022.

Updated 2022-09-01, with data for the month of August 2022.

Updated 2022-08-01, with data for the month of July 2022.

Updated 2022-07-01, with data for the month of June 2022.

Updated 2022-06-01, with data for the month of May 2022.

Updated 2022-05-01, with data for the month of April 2022.

Updated 2022-04-05, RSS Podcasting is now known as RSS.com.

Updated 2022-04-04, with data for the month of March 2022 and a new graph.

Updated 2022-03-03, with data for the month of February 2022.

Updated 2022-02-10, with data for the month of January 2022.

Updated 2022-01-10, with data for the month of December 2021.

Updated 2021-11-15, with data for the month of November 2021.

Updated 2021-11-15, with data for the month of October 2021.

Updated 2021-10-21: Was showing the top 20, now showing the top 50, added thanks about feedback from networks.

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