Pantheon has launched Let’s Encrypt backed SSL, and CDN support through a Fastly partnership. Pantheon manages their full page cache with Varnish, and Fastly is Varnish as well. With their new CDN deployment, they’ll be able to provide cashed assets as well as full page cache all around the world, which has significantly sped up paint times, according to co-founder of Pantheon Josh Koenig.
The SSL and CDN features are on by default and included for free in all Pantheon plans. They’ve also migrated some existing sites, and are making it as simple as a DNS switch for any customers that want to take advantage of the new features.
The new products are also integrated through a new caching plugin, which they developed in partnership with Daniel Bachhuber. The plugin has smart cache busting built in so that page caches are refreshed on content creation and updates, and there is also the ability to manually refresh any page cache through an interface on the WordPress toolbar.
I really like this launch, especially in that it’s now on by default for all plans.