What does actually count in bandwidth?

Admin
2

Hi, @Spartan. If our CDN node sends the data, it counts towards the Netlify bandwidth use. If some other system sends the data then it does not count towards your Netlify bandwidth use.

So, how do you know if the data came from our CDN node? The easiest test is to ask this question:

  • What domain name does the data come from?

Sometimes, you can also ask:

  • What IP address does the data come from?

I was able to look at the domain name in this case.

I visited your site (I work at Netlify and was able to find it) and then I looked up a movie. While I did this I had the browser devtools open and examined the network tab.

When I did this, I can see the API calls and traffic for the following domain names:

  • api.themoviedb.org
  • image.tmdb.org
  • www.youtube.com
  • subdomains of googlevideo.com (like r3---sn-nx5s7n7z.googlevideo.com)

There are possibly other domain names involved but those were the ones that stand out. These are not custom domains for your site at Netlify so the traffic is not going to count as bandwidth used Netlify.

Now, if you see traffic for your site name, like my-cool-movie-app.netlify.app (which is not the real name), then those HTTP requests do count as bandwidth at Netlify.

To understand why, just consider where the data is coming from. The HTTP requests to the domains listed above do not point to our CDN (not counting my-cool-movie-app.netlify.app which would point to our CDN). The traffic for those API calls and HTTP requests (technically the APIs calls are also HTTP requests) happen directly between the browser and those third-party service. We (Netlify) don’t send the data so it would make sense for us to count it.

Our Netlify CDN never sees that traffic. The HTTP requests go to Youtube and TMDB servers, not ours. That traffic therefore does not count at all towards your bandwidth use at Netlify.

We at Netlify literally have no way to even know that traffic is happening. It is completely invisible on our side because it is 100% between the end user’s browser and the third-party API. Netlify isn’t involved in any way.

Now, if the traffic is coming from the custom domain for your site (or the site subdomain under netlify.app) then that traffic does count toward bandwidth at Netlify. That isn’t the case with your site though.

If there are other questions about this, please let us know.

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