The Vercel Edge Network enables you to store content close to your customers and run compute in regions close to your data, reducing latency and improving end-user performance.
An Edge Network is both a Content Delivery Network (CDN) and a globally distributed platform for running compute at the edge.
Redirects and rewrites are both used to modify incoming requests on Vercel. Redirects tell the client to make a new request to a different URL, useful for enforcing HTTPS, redirecting users, and directing traffic.
Rewrites internally change the URL the server uses to fetch the requested resource, allowing for dynamic content and improved routing. Both tools are processed at the Edge Network, providing faster response times and improved performance.
The Vercel Edge Network stores content and runs compute in many regions around the world for optimal performance.
The Vercel Edge Network caches your content at the edge in order to serve data to your users as fast as possible.
The Vercel Edge Network supports streaming responses to enable you to return data from remote sources incrementally rather than all at once. Streaming is always supported in Edge Functions.
Vercel supports streaming in Serverless Functions when using:
- Next.js
- React Server Components
- Remix Streaming SSR
- SvelteKit
- Solid Start
However, not all frameworks support streaming. You should read your preferred framework's docs on streaming to implement best practices. For example, with Next.js, you must use Route Handlers for streaming support.
For more information, see the Streaming for Serverless Node.js and Edge Runtimes with Vercel Functions blog post.
Aside from routing your requests to the correct destination, the Edge Network also takes care of a few other important aspects of a working Deployment:
All of these actions are performed automatically with careful attention to performance (ensured by our choices of technology). In turn, we highly recommend not implementing SSL termination or compression in your own code, as it would be unnecessary.
The Edge Network supports the following protocols (negotiated with ALPN):