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Cloudflare versus Fastly

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.

Cloudflare logo Fastly logo

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

Yes
Sort of/partially
No
Extra costs
Unknown
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 49 25
Latin America 48 8
Europe 45 20
Russia & CIS 11 0
Asia excl. China 45 13
China 37 0
Oceania 10 8
Middle East 15 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

Yes
Sort of/partially
No
Extra costs
Unknown
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 Blog: Root domain on CDN and performanceNo 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 CDN Guide: CompressionReduce 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 Guide: Serve StaleCDN serves cached but expired content in case origin is in trouble Only 'stale while revalidate' Cache-Control extensions support
Purge CDN Guide: PurgeInvalidate 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