Overview

Fastly is a global content delivery network (CDN) and edge cloud platform founded in 2011, headquartered in San Francisco, USA. It focuses on delivering fast, secure, and customizable content delivery and edge computing services. Fastly serves a range of enterprise customers, including The New York Times, GitHub, Spotify, and Pinterest, with a developer-centric approach. Its platform emphasizes real-time control, analytics, and edge computing capabilities. Fastly went public in 2019 and remains active, though it has faced challenges with outages and industry slowdowns.

Network & Architecture

Fastly operates over 60 points of presence (POPs) globally, with a focus on major population centers for low-latency content delivery. Its global anycast network optimizes routing, but its smaller POP count compared to competitors like Akamai or Cloudflare may limit coverage in some regions. Fastly has strong peering agreements, enhancing performance for high-traffic sites. It excels in North America, EMEA, and APAC but has less presence in Africa and LatAm. The platform leverages WebAssembly for edge computing isolation and resiliency.

Features

FeatureSupported
waf✓
bot_mitigation✗
ddos✓
rate_limit✗
http3_quic✓
tls13✓
tiered_cache✗
origin_shield✓
instant_purge✓
stale_while_revalidate✓
stale_if_error✓
image_optimization✓
video_vod✗
video_live✗
drm✗
hls_dash_packaging✗
websockets✓
signed_urls✓
edge_compute✓
functions✓
kv_storage✗
api_first✓
realtime_logs✓
log_push✓
terraform✓

Legend: ✓ = Supported, ✗ = Not supported

Pricing

Fastly uses a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) model with pricing based on data transfer ($0.12–$0.19 per GB) and requests ($0.0075 per 10,000). Additional features like WAF or edge computing may incur extra costs. No free tier is offered, and pricing targets enterprise users. Full details are available at https://www.fastly.com/pricing.

Integrations & DevEx

Fastly supports Terraform for infrastructure-as-code, with recent updates like the Terraform Provider 7.1.0 adding domain metadata and IPv6 preferences. It offers SDKs and APIs for custom integrations, CI/CD pipelines, and real-time analytics. Realtime logs and log-push capabilities integrate with monitoring tools like Splunk or Datadog. Migration tools are limited, but the API-first design simplifies configuration for developers.

When it fits

  • Enterprises needing real-time control and analytics for dynamic content delivery.
  • Developers requiring edge computing with Compute@Edge for serverless applications.
  • Sites with high-traffic demands in North America, EMEA, or APAC regions.

When it doesn’t

  • Small businesses seeking free tiers or simpler, budget-friendly CDN options.
  • Users needing extensive POP coverage in Africa or Latin America.
  • Applications requiring advanced video streaming features like HLS/DASH packaging or DRM.

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