The CDN Purge Strategy: Speed vs Risk

Purges invalidate cached content. The strategies and the trade-offs in speed vs risk.

Targeted purge

Specific URLs. Fast; low risk.

Use for routine content updates.

Tag-based

Cache-tag headers identify content groups. Purge by tag.

Best for related content (e.g., all product images for a category).

Global purge

Wipe entire cache. Last resort; high origin load risk.

Use only when content might be sensitive or wrong everywhere.