Fastly.The developer’s edge.
The network built the way engineers wish networks were built: fewer, enormous POPs, configuration that deploys in seconds, purges that finish before your finger leaves the key, and everything observable in real time. Founded in 2011, listed as FSLY, and the platform we shortlist whenever developer velocity decides the deal.
Fastly, Inc.Fastly in seven bars.
Our advisory read, scored against the 25+ provider field we benchmark. Blue is where Fastly leads; gray is where the trade-offs live.
Scores are CDN World’s advisory judgment, not a lab measurement.
The modern network, on purpose.
Fastly rejected the thousands-of-little-POPs playbook and built the opposite: fewer, far larger POPs at the internet’s densest interchange points, on SSD-powered modern hardware, totalling a company-reported 578 Tbps of connected capacity. The result is a network that behaves like part of your stack rather than a black box in front of it.
Configuration changes deploy globally in seconds, cache purges complete in under 150 milliseconds mean, and logs stream to your endpoints in real time. No other major network makes change this cheap.
VCL gives full control of the request path on the classic platform; Compute runs your own code, in WebAssembly, at the edge for whatever VCL can’t express.
The Next-Gen WAF, from the 2020 Signal Sciences acquisition, is one of the most practitioner-respected WAFs in the market, joined by DDoS protection and bot management.
High-density POPs at strategic markets mean more served from cache and simpler failure modes; the trade-off is a shorter list of cities than distribution-first rivals, a choice, not an accident.
The platform, by line.
The current product names behind each workload on the Fastly edge cloud platform.
Core CDN delivery with instant configuration, shielding and serve-stale built in.
Core platformStreaming delivery with the purge speed and origin shielding live events need.
Core platformOn-the-fly transforms and compression at the edge.
Add-onLog streaming to your endpoints and live stats APIs, the observability rivals charge extra to approximate.
Core platformRun Rust, JavaScript or Go compiled to WebAssembly at the edge, with millisecond cold starts.
Add-onFull request-path control on the classic platform, the power tool Fastly is famous for.
Core platformLong-lived connections, WebSockets and server-sent events, managed at the edge.
Add-onS3-compatible storage co-located with the edge, no egress toll between them.
Add-onSignal Sciences heritage; runs at the edge, on-prem or hybrid, and practitioners actually like it.
Add-onAutomatic attack mitigation across the platform’s capacity.
Add-onBehavioral detection layered on the WAF platform.
Add-onManaged TLS, custom certs and mutual TLS options.
Core platformWhere the network runs deep.
Qualitative depth by region, our advisory read. Fastly’s model is capacity-dense POPs at major interchange points rather than a long list of cities, judge it by throughput and hit ratio, not pin count.
Depth is relative to the field we benchmark, not a PoP count; regional presence changes frequently, confirm current coverage with the provider for your specific markets.
How Fastly is bought.
The most self-serve of the major networks, and the one whose real cost most depends on your traffic’s shape.
Sign up online and test up to $50 of traffic free, no sales call, no long-term contract. The lowest-friction entry of any major network.
Public pricing by region for bandwidth and requests, transparency the enterprise networks don’t offer.
Rates differ by delivery region, so the same terabyte costs different money in São Paulo than in Frankfurt. Your geography mix moves the bill.
Requests are metered per 10,000 alongside bandwidth; small-object, high-request traffic profiles pay disproportionately. This is why a single per-GB number would mislead.
Above self-serve, enterprise packages with committed spend and negotiated rates, exactly the negotiation CDN World runs, with your usage data on the table.
Compute, Next-Gen WAF, DDoS and bot products carry their own pricing; scope them into the commitment rather than bolting them on later.
Fastly bills by region and per 10,000 requests, so we don’t publish a single per-GB tier for it, that number would mislead half the people reading it. Instead we take your actual traffic profile, model the regional and request economics, benchmark the result against the field, and negotiate the committed package. One number that survives contact with your invoice.
The technical checklist.
The line items we verify when benchmarking Fastly against the field, the same checklist behind our comparison pages.
Modern protocols at the edge.
SupportedDual-stack edge on AS54113.
SupportedAlongside 1.2 and legacy support.
SupportedUnder 150ms mean, by URL, key or wildcard, the market benchmark.
<150msGlobal rollout of configuration changes in seconds.
Secondsstale-while-revalidate and stale-if-error, natively.
SupportedDesignated shield POPs concentrate origin fetches.
SupportedPassthrough on delivery; managed long-lived connections via Fanout.
SupportedStreaming to your endpoints, near-live.
SupportedEverything scriptable; the API is the product.
SupportedEdge code beyond VCL, priced separately.
Add-onShared and managed certificate options.
IncludedCustom certs supported.
SupportedEdge token validation in VCL or Compute.
SupportedGeo variables at the edge, enforced in config.
SupportedEdge ACLs, updatable via API.
SupportedReferrer and token controls in configuration.
SupportedMutual TLS for origin connections.
SupportedSignal Sciences lineage, edge, on-prem or hybrid.
Add-onNo in-country presence; we structure a China lane separately when it matters.
NoneDocs, humans, status.
Among the best in the industry: developer.fastly.com and the docs read like they were written by people who use the product.
Tiered support with enterprise response commitments; via CDN World you gain our escalation layer on top.
Public network status page with per-POP detail, transparency in the open.
Contract-dependent availability commitments on enterprise packages; we negotiate them as part of procurement.
Where it wins. Where it doesn’t.
The honest summary we give clients before any Fastly conversation.
Engineering velocity decides the deal: config changes shipping in seconds, purges you can build product logic on, real-time observability, and an API-first culture your developers will genuinely enjoy.
Change management. On most networks configuration is a ticket; on Fastly it’s a deploy. For event-driven media, commerce drops and fast-moving product teams, that difference compounds daily.
Mainland China is on the audience map, procurement wants one flat per-GB number without traffic modeling, or the buying committee equates coverage with a long list of PoP cities.
Regional rates plus per-request fees mean small-object, high-request profiles can surprise; model the request side before committing, it’s the first thing we check in an assessment.
Fastly across the site.
The benchmarked head-to-heads and working guides that pair with this profile.
Fastly questions,
answered straight.
Does Fastly have a free trial?
Yes, genuinely self-serve: sign up online and test up to $50 of traffic free, with no long-term contract and no sales call. Enterprise packages and committed pricing are then negotiated, which is where we come in.
Why isn’t Fastly in your tier tables?
Honesty. Fastly bills by region and per 10,000 requests as well as per GB, so its real cost depends on your object sizes and request mix. A single per-GB number would mislead half the people reading it, so we price Fastly from your actual traffic profile instead.
Does Fastly cover mainland China?
No, there are no mainland-China POPs. Chinese audiences are reached from nearby POPs or, properly, through a separate in-country provider, we structure that lane alongside Fastly when China matters, rather than pretending the problem away.
What is Compute?
Fastly’s edge compute platform: your own code, compiled to WebAssembly, running at the edge with millisecond cold starts. It picks up where VCL ends, personalization, auth, API composition, and is priced separately from delivery.
Is the Next-Gen WAF actually good?
It’s one of the most practitioner-respected WAFs in the market, a reputation inherited from Signal Sciences, which Fastly acquired in 2020. It runs at the edge, on-prem or hybrid, and its low-false-positive approach is the reason security teams tolerate it in blocking mode.
How does Fastly compare to Akamai?
Fastly wins on developer velocity, real-time control and observability; Akamai wins on raw distribution, enterprise security breadth and procurement depth. The full head-to-head is in our comparison.
All product names, logos and brands are the property of their respective owners and are used for identification purposes only. CDN World is an independent advisory and is not endorsed by, sponsored by, or affiliated with any provider listed unless expressly stated. Provider information is published for general information and may change without notice, please confirm current details directly with the provider before relying on them.