Easily compare Gcore 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 | Gcore | Fastly |
|---|---|---|
| Short profile | Gcore is a global CDN with a focus on gaming: "We expand the geographical presence of your game and speed up downloads for your players". Gcore is headquartered in Luxembourg and employs 400+ people. | 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 | Gcore | 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? | Live Streaming | |
| Video on demandDelivery of on demand video | VoD | Video on Demand |
| Image OptimizationAutomatic image transformation/compression/optimization | Image Stack | Image Optimizer |
| DNSAuthoritative DNS for customer domain | DNS | |
| WAFWeb Application Firewall | WAF | 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 | Compute@Edge |
Network
How many POP locations do Gcore and Fastly have in different parts of the world?
| Region | Gcore | Fastly |
|---|---|---|
| North America | 15 | 25 |
| Latin America | 15 | 8 |
| Europe | 22 | 20 |
| Russia & CIS | 13 | 0 |
| Asia excl. China | 15 | 13 |
| China | 0 | 0 |
| Oceania | 2 | 8 |
| Middle East | 13 | 2 |
| Africa | 12 | 3 |
Pricing
| Pricing & contract duration | Gcore | Fastly |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum contract term | One month | None |
| Minimum monthly costs | $37 | $50 |
| Requests costsCustomers pay for client to CDN requests | First 1 billion free, more cost $0.0079/10,000 | $0.0075 - $0.016 per 10k requests |
| Ingress costsCustomers pay for origin-to-CDN bytes transferred | Yes | None |
| NA/EU traffic (low volume) | $0.024 per GB | $0.12 per GB |
| APAC traffic (low volume) | $0.024 per GB | $0.19 per GB |
| LATAM traffic (low volume) | $0.024 per GB | $0.28 per GB |
Features
| Web acceleration | Gcore | Fastly |
|---|---|---|
| Instant setupSign up, configure, start testing. | ||
| Change propagation delayHow fast do config changes propagate to all POPs? | ~15 minutes | Instant! |
Apex/root domain OK  No performance degradation when using http(s)://domain.com |
Custom solution (host your DNS zone ...) | Global anycast IPs are available |
| HTTP/2 | ||
| HTTP/3 | 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 different from origin host | Can be different from origin host |
| Origin ShieldOne POP pulls from origin, other POPs pull from the shield POP | Enable and configure Origin shielding | 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 | ||
| Cache control - CDN caching | Origin or CDN controlled | Full and granular control |
| Cache control - client caching | Origin or CDN controlled | Full and granular control |
| Serve Stale CDN serves cached but expired content in case origin is in trouble |
Always Online | Cache-Control extensions support |
| Purge Invalidate or delete cached objects on CDN |
Purge Speed | Instant! |
| Purge - capabilities | Purge all, directory, and by file type/pattern | Purge all and by key |
| Analytics | Many metrics, real-time updates | Real-time! |
| Log files | Export logs to your storage. Logs are exported at the end of each hour. | Real-time streaming of logs to your server |
| API | Purge, analytics, configuration | Purge, analytics, configuration |
| HTTPS & Content Protection | Gcore | Fastly |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | Manage self in control panel | EV cert possible. |
| Token authentication | Secure Token | Enabling URL token validation |
| Geo blocking | Country Access Policy | |
| Hotlink protectionThird parties cannot deeplink to your content | Referer Access Policy | Creating and using Edge Dictionaries |
| Basic authenticationUser logs in on the CDN to get content | Authenticating before returning a request | |
| IP white/blacklisting | IP Access Policy | About Edge ACLs |
Support
| Customer support | Gcore | Fastly |
|---|---|---|
| Documentation | Yes, public | Yes, public |
| Humans | Technical support depends on price plan. Pro plan and up get 24/7 mail, chat and phone support. | Email support during business hours is free. Pay extra if you need more/better. Two paid plans available |