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 edge platform providing AI, cloud, network, and security solutions, all seamlessly integrated at the edge. With over 180 POPs across six continents, Gcore ensures fast, reliable, and secure delivery of dynamic and static content worldwide. | 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 | 18 | 8 |
| Europe | 31 | 20 |
| Russia & CIS | 14 | 0 |
| Asia excl. China | 17 | 13 |
| China | 0 | 0 |
| Oceania | 2 | 8 |
| Middle East | 12 | 2 |
| Africa | 20 | 3 |
Pricing
| Pricing & contract duration | Gcore | Fastly |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum contract term | None month | None |
| Minimum monthly costs | $0 | $50 |
| Requests costsCustomers pay for client to CDN requests | First 1 billion free, more cost $0.0079 per 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) | $0.0315 per GB | $0.12 per GB |
| APAC traffic (low volume) | $0.0315 per GB | $0.19 per GB |
| LATAM traffic (low volume) | $0.0315 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 |
CNAME flattening | 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 and by pattern | Purge all and by key |
| Analytics | Detailed statistics by server and by user | Real-time! |
| Log files | Log Viewer | 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 | 8/5 email support for low volume plans. Volume and Enterprise customers get 24/7 chat, phone and email support | Email support during business hours is free. Pay extra if you need more/better. Two paid plans available |