Easily compare Fastly and SwiftServe 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 | Fastly | SwiftServe |
|---|---|---|
| Short profile | 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. | SwiftServe CDN, operated by Conversant, has a strong POP presence in Asia and especially Indonesia. Their services include web acceleration, file download optimisation, video on demand (VoD) and live streaming. Conversant operates the largest CDN Federation in Asia. |
Products
| Product | Fastly | SwiftServe |
|---|---|---|
| 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? | ||
| Video on demandDelivery of on demand video | Video on Demand | |
| Image OptimizationAutomatic image transformation/compression/optimization | Image Optimizer | |
| DNSAuthoritative DNS for customer domain | ||
| WAFWeb Application Firewall | Web application firewall | |
| Anti-DDoSDDoS attack protection. Specific product(s) for this. | DDoS Mitigation | |
| Private CDNDedicated edge resources & custom configs | Fastly Managed CDN | |
| Edge ComputeRun your code on CDN edge servers | Compute@Edge |
Network
How many POP locations do Fastly and SwiftServe have in different parts of the world?
| Region | Fastly | SwiftServe |
|---|---|---|
| North America | 25 | 2 |
| Latin America | 8 | 0 |
| Europe | 20 | 1 |
| Russia & CIS | 0 | 0 |
| Asia excl. China | 13 | 20 |
| China | 0 | 1 |
| Oceania | 8 | 0 |
| Middle East | 2 | 0 |
| Africa | 3 | 1 |
Pricing
| Pricing & contract duration | Fastly | SwiftServe |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum contract term | None | 12 months |
| Minimum monthly costs | $50 | Unknown |
| Requests costsCustomers pay for client to CDN requests | $0.0075 - $0.016 per 10k requests | None |
| Ingress costsCustomers pay for origin-to-CDN bytes transferred | None | None |
| NA/EU traffic (low volume) | $0.12 per GB | Unknown |
| APAC traffic (low volume) | $0.19 per GB | Unknown |
| LATAM traffic (low volume) | $0.28 per GB | Unknown |
Features
| Web acceleration | Fastly | SwiftServe |
|---|---|---|
| Instant setupSign up, configure, start testing. | ||
| Change propagation delayHow fast do config changes propagate to all POPs? | Instant! | 15 minutes |
Apex/root domain OK  No performance degradation when using http(s)://domain.com |
Global anycast IPs are available | |
| HTTP/2 | ||
| HTTP/3 | Enabling HTTP/3 | |
| WebSockets | 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. Brotli! | Resend from origin, or compress on edge |
| 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 different from origin host | Can't configure specific other Host header |
| Origin ShieldOne POP pulls from origin, other POPs pull from the shield POP | Also available as separate product (Media Shield) | |
| Waiting RoomDuring peak traffic, route users to a virtual waiting room | Stateful waiting room with Compute@Edge | |
| Push / uploadStore your content directly on CDN, no customer origin | FTP or upload in portal. Storage costs apply | |
| Cache control - CDN caching | Full and granular control | Set override caching rules. Per file type. |
| Cache control - client caching | Full and granular control | |
| Serve Stale CDN serves cached but expired content in case origin is in trouble |
Cache-Control extensions support | |
| Purge Invalidate or delete cached objects on CDN |
Instant! | Up to 15 minutes |
| Purge - capabilities | Purge all and by key | Purge file, all and by directory |
| Analytics | Real-time! |
Updated daily or hourly (premium)
No metrics per config/zone
|
| Log files | Real-time streaming of logs to your server | Logs are daily |
| API | Purge, analytics, configuration | Purge, analytics, configuration |
| HTTPS & Content Protection | Fastly | SwiftServe |
|---|---|---|
| CDN domain HTTPSUse the CDN's domain, like cloudfront.net | Free for first 5 domains, $20 per additional domain | |
| Customer domain HTTPSYour domain in the CDN's certificate | $100/m per FQDN, $275/m for wildcard domain | |
| Customer cert HTTPSYour certificate on the CDN | EV cert possible. | |
| Token authentication | Enabling URL token validation | |
| Geo blocking | ||
| Hotlink protectionThird parties cannot deeplink to your content | Creating and using Edge Dictionaries | |
| Basic authenticationUser logs in on the CDN to get content | Authenticating before returning a request | |
| IP white/blacklisting | About Edge ACLs |
Support
| Customer support | Fastly | SwiftServe |
|---|---|---|
| Documentation | Yes, public | Yes, but not public |
| Humans | Email support during business hours is free. Pay extra if you need more/better. Two paid plans available | All customers get email support. 24/7 phone support is available (costs extra) |