Cloudflare vs Fastly

Cloudflare and Fastly are both top-tier CDN providers, but they target different audiences and use cases. Both significantly improve site speed and Core Web Vitals, which directly impacts SEO performance. The choice between them depends on your technical requirements, budget, and team capabilities.

CDN Performance

Both Cloudflare and Fastly deliver excellent CDN performance. Cloudflare operates a network spanning over 330 cities globally, providing broad geographic coverage. Fastly has fewer edge locations at 90+ cities but strategically positions them in high-traffic areas and focuses on performance per node.

In practice, both CDNs deliver sub-100ms response times for cached content in most major markets. The Core Web Vitals impact is comparable, with both significantly improving TTFB and LCP when properly configured.

Cache Purging

Fastly has a clear advantage in cache purging speed. It purges cached content globally in approximately 150 milliseconds, making it possible to serve frequently updated content from the CDN without stale data concerns. This is critical for news sites, e-commerce platforms, and any site that needs to update content in near real-time.

Cloudflare’s purge time is around 5 seconds, which is fast but not instant. For most websites, this difference is irrelevant. For sites with content that changes minute to minute, Fastly’s purge speed is a genuine differentiator.

Edge Computing

Both platforms offer edge computing capabilities. Cloudflare Workers uses JavaScript and runs across the entire network. Fastly’s Compute@Edge supports Rust, JavaScript, and Go, offering more language flexibility and lower-level control. Fastly’s edge computing is generally considered more powerful for complex use cases, while Cloudflare Workers is easier to adopt and has a larger ecosystem.

Security and DDoS Protection

Cloudflare includes DDoS protection on all plans, including the free tier. Its security features are comprehensive and easy to configure. Fastly includes DDoS protection as well but its security features are more focused on enterprise deployments.

Pricing

Cloudflare’s free tier is the most generous in the CDN industry. It includes CDN, basic DDoS protection, SSL, and DNS for unlimited bandwidth. The Pro plan at $20 per month adds image optimization and enhanced performance features. Fastly starts at $50 per month minimum and charges based on bandwidth, making it significantly more expensive for smaller sites.

Bottom Line

Choose Cloudflare if you want excellent performance with a free tier, broad security features, and easy setup. Choose Fastly if you need instant cache purging, advanced edge computing, and are willing to pay more for developer-focused capabilities.