Fastly vs Cloudflare: A Competitive Comparison
Get superior support, real-time content control, and boost performance and security on our global network, all without any billing surprises. Learn how Fastly stacks up against Cloudflare below.
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25% (1.25x) faster time to first byte (TTFB) when moving from Cloudflare CDN to Fastly*
Almost 90% of Fastly’s Next-Gen WAF customers are in full blocking mode**
Top reasons to move from Cloudflare to Fastly
Performance: Fastly’s modern network is built for efficiency, with high capacity, high throughput POPs that keep more in cache for longer resulting in faster TTFB, lower latency, and lower cost.
Configurability: Fastly provides more custom configuration options than any other provider, allowing you to fine-tune CDN settings to optimize performance. This includes the ability to instantly purge stale content - 150 ms on global average***.
Reliability: We strive to ensure network resilience. We are constantly fortifying our network, control plane, and data plane to maintain an increased durability.
Added value: We provide the full power of our platform for all customers, regardless of contract tiers. We don’t gate features like load balancing, traffic acceleration via smart routing or keep alive connections, plus you get 100% of streaming logs in real-time.
Improved security posture: Fastly Next-Gen WAF and Bot Management solutions use our own SmartParse detection engine for more accurate detection, lowest possible false positives, and a precision-based tuning process.
Superior support: Fastly delivers superior customer support with a CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) score of 98%****, direct access to our deeply knowledgeable support team and rapid response times, including a Slack option.
No billing surprises: Whether it’s a major ecommerce storefront launch or a volumetric DDoS attack, we’ll work with you on the right billing approach based on current and anticipated volume, rather than pushing for contract upgrades or kicking you off our network.
How Fastly stacks up against Cloudflare
Fastly | Cloudflare | |
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Security | ||
WAF visibility | ||
Management & Administration | ||
Real-Time Visibility | ||
We offer industry leading value
Move to a better network. We are committed to making the switch as seamless as possible.
Hear what our customers have to say
Uptime was at 96%, a concern for how Linktree would cope with traffic spikes. After deploying the Fastly CDN, overnight Linktree’s uptime surged to 99.999%, putting the platform in a much better position to prepare for the unexpected.
“When we change Fastly configs, we look at the error logs - if we break something we can just roll it back with Fastly versioning. Fastly fits into our process because when we ship out a new config, it takes effect almost immediately. Moving quickly is a huge deal for us, and we’re able to do that with Fastly. The UI format gives us confidence because we can see literally everything that is happening.”
Alan Schaaf, Founder and CEO, Imgur
"Because I'm an engineer, if I have questions they are usually pretty technical. It's a joy to work with support people that get the technical questions I have. And anytime I open a support ticket with Fastly, I get a response that same day."
Brian Benns, Senior Site Reliability Engineer, Giphy
“The degree of control provided by Fastly’s Next-Gen WAF was a huge differentiator. We had serious issues with constant false positives and lack of visibility into what caused them with Cloudflare. By contrast, Fastly blocks tens of thousands of unwanted requests a day—270k a week—which takes strain off our infrastructure.”
Jae Kaplan, Cofounder & Developer at Antisoftware Software Club, Maker of cohost
See what analysts have to say
The Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) Of Fastly Network Services
Fastly delivered 189% ROI over 3 years. Learn about the cost savings and business benefits of Fastly CDN.
Six years in a row as a Customers’ Choice
See why Fastly was named a Customers’ Choice in the 2024 Gartner® Peer Insights™ ‘Voice of the Customer’ for Cloud Web Application and API Protection.
* Blog: Websites get faster when moving to Fastly
** Almost 90% of Fastly Next-Gen WAF customers are in full-blocking mode, as of March 2023
*** 150 ms on global average, as of December 31, 2022
**** CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) score of 98%, as of March 31, 2024
Related resources
Many CDNs offer the same types of services, but they're not all the same. Whether you're trying to improve your performance and security, or selecting a CDN to start with, use this guide to distinguish the best from the rest.
Choosing the wrong WAF can lead to high false positives, brittle AppSec configurations and high maintenance costs. That’s why having the right evaluation criteria is essential.
Our team is equipped to handle any migration scenario. Read on to determine what Fastly products or features are equivalent to your products and features with Cloudflare.
Meet a more powerful global network.
Our network is all about greater efficiency. With our strategically placed points of presence (POPs), you can scale on-demand and deliver seamlessly during major events and traffic spikes. Get the peace of mind that comes with truly reliable performance — wherever users may be browsing, watching, shopping, or doing business.
377 Tbps
Edge network capacity1
150 ms
Mean purge time with Instant Purge™
>1.8 trillion
Daily requests served4
~90% of customers
Run Next-Gen WAF in blocking mode3
As of March 31, 2024
As of December 31, 2019
As of March 31, 2021
As of July 31, 2023
Support plans
Fastly offers several support plans to meet your needs: standard, gold and enterprise.
Standard
Free of charge and available as soon as you sign up with Fastly.
Gold
Proactive alerts for high-impact events, expedited 24/7 incident response times, and a 100% uptime Service Level Agreement (SLA) guarantee.
Enterprise
Gives you the added benefits of emergency escalation for support cases and 24/7 responses for inquiries (not just incidents).