Bunny CDN Quick Setup Guide

Bunny CDN Quick Setup Guide

Bunny CDN has earned a solid reputation among developers for simple reasons: transparent pricing, usage-based billing with no minimum commitment, and a control panel far cleaner than most big-name CDNs. This guide walks through the complete order — register → create a Pull Zone → caching → HTTPS → DNS → connect your site → optimize — so you can go live from zero.

Why Bunny CDN

Bunny CDN is a very cost-effective CDN provider, ideal for sites with a tight budget but real performance requirements.

• Low price: from $1.40/TB with no hidden fees; traffic pricing is among the most competitive in the mainstream CDN market
• Pay-as-you-go: no minimum commitment, so even a personal site has no monthly fee threshold
• 119 global nodes: coverage across NA, EU, Asia; static assets are served from the nearest edge
• Simple UI: a control panel that's intuitive with a short learning curve
• Free SSL: automatic Let's Encrypt certificates

One caveat: Bunny CDN has no mainland China nodes. If most of your visitors are in mainland China, think twice or pair it with a domestic CDN.

Step 1: Register and Create a Pull Zone

1. Register at bunny.net (email or third-party login);
2. In the dashboard, click Add Pull Zone;
3. Fill in the following:

Pull Zone Name: your-site (becomes part of the CDN URL, e.g. your-site.b-cdn.net)
Origin URL: https://your-origin-server.com (your origin address, domain or IP)
Type: Generic (Other)

The Pull Zone is Bunny's core concept: it pulls files from your origin and caches them at edge nodes. Make sure the origin URL is actually reachable, or the first fetch will return 502.

Step 2: Configure Caching

Cache Settings:
- Enable Cache: ✅
- Cache Expiration Time: 86400 (24 hours, in seconds)
- Override Cache Time: 0 (respect the origin's Cache-Control, and use the fallback above when the origin sets none)

Cache Processor:
- Enable Optimizer: ❌ (turn on only if you need image optimization)

Longer isn't always better: static assets (images, CSS, JS) can go 7 or even 365 days, while dynamic endpoints should be 0. Starting with a uniform 86400 and then refining by resource type is the safer path to launch.

Step 3: Configure HTTPS

SSL Settings:
- Enable SSL: ✅ (auto-provisions a Let's Encrypt certificate)
- Force SSL: ✅ (301 redirect from HTTP to HTTPS)
- Host Header: keep the default

Enabling Force SSL redirects all HTTP requests to HTTPS, avoiding the "mixed content" problem where some resources load over HTTP and others over HTTPS.

Step 4: Connect DNS

Option A: CNAME (recommended)

Add a CNAME record in your domain's DNS:

cdn.example.com  CNAME  your-site.b-cdn.net

Option B: Bunny DNS

Add the domain in the Bunny dashboard and let Bunny host the DNS:

Add Domain → enter example.com → note the NS addresses
→ update the domain's NS records at your registrar

Option A is more flexible (doesn't affect existing DNS); Option B gives you Bunny's Anycast DNS directly. Both work — pick based on how your DNS is hosted today.

Step 5: Use It on Your Site

<!-- Replace original resource URLs with CDN addresses -->
<!-- Original -->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://example.com/style.css">
<!-- CDN -->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.example.com/style.css">

<!-- Or replace paths directly with the Pull Zone URL -->
<img src="https://your-site.b-cdn.net/images/photo.jpg" alt="">

When you go live, replace all static resource URLs with CDN addresses and keep the origin as a fallback so you can roll back easily.

Performance: Brotli and Edge Rules

Bunny CDN dashboard → Pull Zone → Compression:
- Enable Brotli: ✅

Brotli compresses text resources (HTML, JS, CSS) on average 15-20% better than gzip. Combine it with Edge Rules to refine caching:

Edge Rules:
1. If URL contains /assets/* → Cache TTL: 365 days
2. If URL contains /api/*    → Cache TTL: 0 seconds
3. If URL ends with .html    → Cache TTL: 3600 seconds

Pricing Reference

Bunny's traffic pricing is essentially flat at about $0.01/GB (slight regional variation), so:

A personal site typically moves tens of GB per month — often under a dollar a month in CDN costs.

Notes

1. No mainland China nodes: it's an overseas CDN; pair it with a domestic acceleration solution for China-facing traffic;
2. First request has latency: the origin fetch takes a moment — pre-warm critical assets;
3. API available: integrate into CI/CD flows to create Pull Zones and purge caches automatically, and reuse general API integration patterns;
4. One-click cache purge: the dashboard's Purge feature clears stale content instantly after a release.

Reference: Bunny CDN official docs https://docs.bunny.net/

Follow this flow and a static site can usually be on the CDN within an hour. Three things matter most: the origin URL must be right, caching should be split by resource type, and SSL should always be on.