Easily compare Cloudflare and Fastly for POP locations, products, pricing, features & support. We hope this helps you better understand the similarities and differences between these content delivery networks.
Company
| Company | Cloudflare | Fastly |
|---|---|---|
| Short profile | Cloudflare provides a global CDN with unique performance capabilities and a strong focus on security. The company has a global infrastructure built from the ground up using only next-generation, high-performance equipment—no legacy software or hardware. The result is a CDN that's easy to set up, affordable, and built to continuously adapt and integrate emerging technologies to meet future needs of everyone's Internet properties. | Founded in 2011, Fastly has grown into a mature CDN provider. Fastly offers a range of services including streaming media delivery and private CDN but Fastly is best known for being a 'real-time CDN', meaning changes happen instantly and the platform can deliver 'uncacheable' content well. |
Products
| Product | Cloudflare | Fastly |
|---|---|---|
| Dynamic content deliveryNon-cacheable content delivery. User login, shopping cart ... | ||
| Small file deliveryStatic object delivery; caching of small files (file size <1 MB) | ||
| Large file deliveryStatic object delivery; caching of large files (file size >1 MB) | ||
| Live videoDelivery of live video. RTMP? Transcoding/transmuxing? | Stream Live | |
| Video on demandDelivery of on demand video | Stream | Video on Demand |
| Image OptimizationAutomatic image transformation/compression/optimization | Image Resizing, Mirage, Polish | Image Optimizer |
| DNSAuthoritative DNS for customer domain | DNS | |
| WAFWeb Application Firewall | Cloud Web Application Firewall | Web application firewall |
| Anti-DDoSDDoS attack protection. Specific product(s) for this. | DDoS Protection | DDoS Mitigation |
| Private CDNDedicated edge resources & custom configs | Fastly Managed CDN | |
| Edge ComputeRun your code on CDN edge servers | Workers | Compute@Edge |
Network
How many POP locations do Cloudflare and Fastly have in different parts of the world?
| Region | Cloudflare | Fastly |
|---|---|---|
| North America | 54 | 25 |
| Latin America | 55 | 8 |
| Europe | 47 | 20 |
| Russia & CIS | 12 | 0 |
| Asia excl. China | 45 | 13 |
| China | 37 | 0 |
| Oceania | 14 | 8 |
| Middle East | 21 | 2 |
| Africa | 24 | 3 |
Pricing
| Pricing & contract duration | Cloudflare | Fastly |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum contract term | None | None |
| Minimum monthly costs | $0 | $50 |
| Requests costsCustomers pay for client to CDN requests | None | $0.0075 - $0.016 per 10k requests |
| Ingress costsCustomers pay for origin-to-CDN bytes transferred | None | None |
| NA/EU traffic (low volume) | $0 | $0.12 per GB |
| APAC traffic (low volume) | $0 | $0.19 per GB |
| LATAM traffic (low volume) | $0 | $0.28 per GB |
Features
| Web acceleration | Cloudflare | Fastly |
|---|---|---|
| Instant setupSign up, configure, start testing. | ||
| Change propagation delayHow fast do config changes propagate to all POPs? | Instant | Instant! |
Apex/root domain OK  No performance degradation when using http(s)://domain.com |
Global Anycast network | Global anycast IPs are available |
| HTTP/2 | ||
| HTTP/3 | HTTP/3 Prioritization | Enabling HTTP/3 |
| WebSockets | WebSockets docs | Limited availability |
| IPv6Do the edge servers have IPv6? | IPv6 at Fastly | |
| Compression Reduce file size for faster delivery |
Resend from origin, or compress on edge | Resend from origin, or compress on edge. Brotli! |
| Origin pull - protocolHTTP only or HTTPS possible too? | HTTP and HTTPS | HTTP and HTTPS |
| Origin pull - Host headerUse client > edge value? Set specific value? | Can be an IP address | Can be different from origin host |
| Origin ShieldOne POP pulls from origin, other POPs pull from the shield POP | Tiered Cache, included in all paid plans | Also available as separate product (Media Shield) |
| Waiting RoomDuring peak traffic, route users to a virtual waiting room | Cloudflare Waiting Room | Stateful waiting room with Compute@Edge |
| Push / uploadStore your content directly on CDN, no customer origin | ||
| Cache control - CDN caching | Page rules for overriding caching headers | Full and granular control |
| Cache control - client caching | Full and granular control | |
| Serve Stale CDN serves cached but expired content in case origin is in trouble |
Only 'stale while revalidate' | Cache-Control extensions support |
| Purge Invalidate or delete cached objects on CDN |
Purge Speed | Instant! |
| Purge - capabilities | Purge per file and purge all | Purge all and by key |
| Analytics | Web analytics, threats and more. Live-updating for paying customers | Real-time! |
| Log files | Only for Enterprise customers, instantly available | Real-time streaming of logs to your server |
| API | Purge, analytics, configuration | Purge, analytics, configuration |
| HTTPS & Content Protection | Cloudflare | Fastly |
|---|---|---|
| CDN domain HTTPSUse the CDN's domain, like cloudfront.net | SNI | Free for first 5 domains, $20 per additional domain |
| Customer domain HTTPSYour domain in the CDN's certificate | More info | $100/m per FQDN, $275/m for wildcard domain |
| Customer cert HTTPSYour certificate on the CDN | EV cert possible. | |
| Token authentication | More info | Enabling URL token validation |
| Geo blocking | Access Rules | |
| Hotlink protectionThird parties cannot deeplink to your content | Creating and using Edge Dictionaries | |
| Basic authenticationUser logs in on the CDN to get content | Possible with Workers | Authenticating before returning a request |
| IP white/blacklisting | Access Rules | About Edge ACLs |
Support
| Customer support | Cloudflare | Fastly |
|---|---|---|
| Documentation | Yes, public. Cloudflare Community. | Yes, public |
| Humans | Email support for all. Phone only for Enterprise customers | Email support during business hours is free. Pay extra if you need more/better. Two paid plans available |