Infrastructure and hosting

Detailed information on ButterCMS’s infrastructure, hosting environment, global CDN, and platform reliability.

ButterCMS is hosted on infrastructure provided by AWS and Heroku. The data centers where the content is stored are ISO 27001 certified, a standard recognized globally.

Cloud infrastructure

ButterCMS’s infrastructure runs on Heroku and Amazon Web Services (AWS). The data centers used for storage are certified for compliance with the ISO 27001 standard. This enterprise-grade infrastructure provides:

• High availability and fault tolerance
• Geographic redundancy
• Auto-scaling capabilities
• Enterprise-level security controls

Infrastructure components

Component	Provider	Purpose
Application Platform	Heroku	Application hosting and scaling
Cloud Services	AWS	Core infrastructure and services
Content Delivery	Fastly CDN	API and content delivery
Media Delivery	Amazon CloudFront	Images, videos, and asset delivery
Data Storage	AWS	Encrypted database storage
Backup Storage	AWS S3	Daily backup storage

Global content delivery network (CDN)

The content API traffic is served through Fastly, a reliable and quick content delivery platform (CDN). Your media assets are stored and delivered via Amazon CloudFront, a low-latency CDN.

ButterCMS uses SOC2 Type 2 and SOC3-compliant AWS data centers and a globally cached API to deliver high scalability, availability, and performance levels.

CDN architecture

Fastly CDN

Powers the Content API with global edge caching for fast response times

CloudFront CDN

Delivers media assets from edge locations worldwide

CDN benefits

• Global Edge Network - Content served from locations closest to your users
• Automatic Caching - Reduces latency and improves response times
• DDoS Protection - Built-in protection against distributed attacks
• SSL/TLS Termination - Secure connections at the edge
• High Availability - Multiple points of presence for redundancy

The globally cached API means your content is stored at edge locations around the world, ensuring fast delivery regardless of where your users are located.

Hosting & scaling

ButterCMS handles hosting and scaling for you. The infrastructure runs on the reliable platforms of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Heroku. State-of-the-art fault tolerance and load balancing features are used to maximize availability. The globally cached API and content empowers you to achieve high levels of scalability, performance, and availability. As you grow, the platform grows with you. ButterCMS has served more than a billion requests.

Auto-scaling capabilities

ButterCMS automatically scales to handle traffic spikes:

Scenario	How ButterCMS Handles It
Traffic Spike	Auto-scaling adds capacity instantly
High Concurrency	Load balancing distributes requests
Global Traffic	CDN serves content from nearest edge
Large Payloads	Optimized delivery for media assets

Performance at scale

• Billions of requests served - Proven track record at enterprise scale
• Sub-second response times - Fast API responses globally
• No scaling configuration needed - We handle all scaling operations

Data centers

AWS data centers meet a broad range of industry compliance standards. See Compliance Certifications for the full list.

Data center certifications

Certification	Description
ISO 27001	Information security management standard
SOC 1	Internal controls over financial reporting
SOC 2/SSAE	Security, availability, and confidentiality controls
PCI Level 1	Payment card industry data security
FISMA Moderate	US federal information security requirements
SOX	Sarbanes-Oxley financial compliance

Physical security

AWS data centers provide enterprise-grade physical security:

• 24/7 Security Personnel - Trained security staff on-site
• Multi-factor Access Controls - Biometric and credential-based access
• Video Surveillance - Comprehensive monitoring systems
• Environmental Controls - Fire suppression, climate control, power backup
• Secure Perimeter - Fencing, barriers, and controlled entry points

High availability

Redundancy architecture

ButterCMS is built for high availability with multiple layers of redundancy:

Fault tolerance features

Feature	Description
High Availability	Database hosted on Heroku with automatic failover
Automatic Failover	Traffic rerouted on component failure
Health Monitoring	Continuous service health checks
Self-Healing	Automatic restart of failed services
Graceful Degradation	Maintain core functionality during partial outages

Monitoring & observability

24/7 infrastructure monitoring

ButterCMS continuously monitors all infrastructure components:

• System Health - CPU, memory, disk, network metrics
• Application Performance - Response times, error rates, throughput
• Security Events - Intrusion detection, anomaly detection
• Availability - Uptime monitoring across all services
• Capacity - Resource utilization and scaling triggers

Disaster recovery

Backup & recovery

ButterCMS implements comprehensive backup and recovery procedures, including daily encrypted database backups with 30+ day retention and continuous media asset redundancy via Amazon S3.

Data Backup & Recovery

See full backup schedules, retention policies, and recovery capabilities

Network security

Modern security controls, including web application firewalls, AWS security groups, HTTP Strict Transport Security, single sign-on (SSO), and rate limits for brute-force protection are used to protect your systems and data from unauthorized access.

Network protection layers

Layer	Protection
Edge	DDoS mitigation, WAF rules
Transport	TLS 1.2+, HSTS
Application	Rate limiting, input validation
Network	VPC isolation, security groups

DDoS protection

• Automatic Mitigation - CDN provides DDoS protection at the edge
• Traffic Scrubbing - Malicious traffic filtered before reaching origin
• Rate Limiting - Prevents brute force and abuse
• Geographic Filtering - Optional country-level access controls