Fastly vs Cloudflare(2026)
Fastly is better for teams that need excellent performance. Cloudflare is the stronger choice if extremely generous free tier. Fastly is paid (from $0.12/GB) and Cloudflare is freemium (from $20/month).
Full feature breakdown, pricing details, and pros & cons below.
By Bikram Nath
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Fastly
Fastly is an edge cloud platform with CDN, streaming delivery, and compute@edge capabilities used by Shopify and GitHub.
Starting at $0.12/GB
Visit FastlyCloudflare
Cloudflare provides CDN, DDoS protection, DNS, Workers edge computing, and security services.
Starting at $20/month
Visit CloudflareHow Do Fastly and Cloudflare Compare on Features?
| Feature | Fastly | Cloudflare |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | paid | freemium |
| Starting price | $0.12/GB | $20/month |
| CDN | ✓ | — |
| Compute@Edge (WebAssembly) | ✓ | — |
| Image optimization | ✓ | — |
| Streaming | ✓ | — |
| Security (WAF) | ✓ | — |
| Real-time analytics | ✓ | — |
| Global CDN (300+ PoPs) | — | ✓ |
| DDoS protection | — | ✓ |
| Workers (edge functions) | — | ✓ |
| R2 storage | — | ✓ |
| Zero Trust security | — | ✓ |
| DNS (fastest) | — | ✓ |
Fastly Pros and Cons vs Cloudflare
Fastly
Cloudflare
Should You Use Fastly or Cloudflare?
For most teams, Fastly is the better default: it offers excellent performance and is paid (from $0.12/GB). Choose Cloudflare instead if extremely generous free tier matters more than no real free tier. There is no universal winner — the right pick depends on your budget, team size, and whether you value excellent performance or extremely generous free tier more.
Choose Fastly if…
- •Excellent performance
- •Compute@Edge is powerful
- •Real-time config changes
Choose Cloudflare if…
- •Extremely generous free tier
- •Workers for edge computing
- •Best DNS performance