Question

Can presigned URLs work with CDN?

I found here a warning about presigned URLS and CND:

Using presigned URLs does not allow transferred files to be cached when using the Spaces CDN. Attempting to do so may result in double the bandwidth charge without the CDN’s performance benefit.

from below link:

https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/spaces/how-to/use-aws-sdks/

and also found anther description here:

You can also use presigned URLs with the Spaces CDN. To do so, configure your SDK or S3 tool to use the non-CDN endpoint, generate a presigned URL for a GetObject request, then modify the hostname in the URL to be the CDN hostname (<space-name>.<region>.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com, unless the bucket uses a custom hostname).

from below link:

https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/spaces/how-to/enable-cdn/

These two descriptions make me confused, whether the presigned URLs can work with CDN or not?


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alexdo
Site Moderator
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April 30, 2025

Heya,

By default, presigned URLS do not use the CDN hostname — they use the standard (non-CDN) endpoint.

If you use a presigned URL directly from the non-CDN endpoint, the CDN is bypassed, no caching, and you pay full bandwidth from the origin.

Regards

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