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Gcore versus Fastly

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.

Gcore logo Fastly logo

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

Yes
Sort of/partially
No
Extra costs
Unknown
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 17 8
Europe 23 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

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