We used to expose the dedicated servers directly (i.e. no CDN at all), and while that was fine latency-wise, the lack of DDoS protection was really the limiting factor. E.g. Hetzner will just blackhole your subnet if you get DDoSed.
It feels rather unviable nowadays to run a business without some CDN/DDoS protection service in front of your website.
We used to expose the dedicated servers directly (i.e. no CDN at all), and while that was fine latency-wise, the lack of DDoS protection was really the limiting factor. E.g. Hetzner will just blackhole your subnet if you get DDoSed.
It feels rather unviable nowadays to run a business without some CDN/DDoS protection service in front of your website.