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Content delivery network

Fastly CDN

A programmable content-delivery product for teams that deliberately operate cache, purge, and origin behavior.

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Editorial verdict

Choose Fastly CDN when delivery behavior is an engineering system and fine-grained control matters more than a low-touch default.1789

Best for

  • Advanced cache and freshness control
  • Targeted purge workflows
  • Teams prepared to operate delivery configuration
1789

Not ideal for

  • Teams wanting a low-operations CDN default
  • AWS-first origin operations
  • Workloads that do not justify regional usage and product complexity
1789
Main trade-off

Programmable delivery and purge control trade against operating expertise, multi-product boundaries, and region-sensitive cost.1789

Product boundary

Whether programmable delivery control justifies Fastly's operating and traffic-pricing complexity.

This Tool covers Fastly CDN/Network Services. Fastly Compute, Observability, and security products remain separate.78

For: Platform teams with material cache, purge, request-routing, or origin-control requirements

  • Advanced cache and purge control is not material.
  • The team cannot own delivery configuration and incidents.
  • Regional traffic and adjacent Fastly products make cost unsuitable.

Why teams consider Fastly CDN

  • Programmable deliveryService configuration exposes deliberate cache and request behavior.78
  • Purge controlDocumented purge mechanisms support targeted freshness workflows.78
  • Explicit product layersCDN, Compute, Observability, and security retain separate boundaries.78

Pricing

Network Services/CDN uses published allowances and regional usage rates, with Compute, Observability, security, support, and contracts priced separately.9

Delivery estimate

Free allowance then regional usage or contract

Verified 2026-07-25: Full Site Delivery includes 100 GB bandwidth before current regional rates; requests and other products require separate modeling.9

Primary cost drivers
Region, bandwidth, requests, and selected Network Services9
Separate products
Compute, Observability, security, support, and contracts9
Pricing checked View official pricing

Fastly CDN vs alternatives

Cloudflare CDN

Choose when
Choose it for integrated proxy/cache/security operation.
Compared with Fastly CDN
Broader bundle with less product separation.13

Amazon CloudFront

Choose when
Choose it for AWS origin and IAM integration.
Compared with Fastly CDN
AWS coupling and multi-service billing.46

Bunny CDN

Choose when
Choose it when a simpler bandwidth-priced pull CDN is enough.
Compared with Fastly CDN
Less programmable delivery depth.1012

Resources and sources

Official product, policy, and pricing

  • Fastly cache documentation
    Open
  • Fastly cache purging
    Open
  • Fastly pricing
    Open
  1. 1
    Cloudflare Cache documentation

    Cloudflare · Accessed Official

  2. 2
    Cloudflare Cache plan differences

    Cloudflare · Accessed Official

  3. 3
    Cloudflare plans

    Cloudflare · Accessed Official

  4. 4
    Amazon CloudFront introduction

    Amazon Web Services · Accessed Official

  5. 5
    Choose CloudFront Functions or Lambda@Edge

    Amazon Web Services · Accessed Official

  6. 6
    Amazon CloudFront pricing

    Amazon Web Services · Accessed Official

  7. 7
    Fastly cache documentation

    Fastly · Accessed Official

  8. 8
    Fastly cache purging

    Fastly · Accessed Official

  9. 9
    Fastly pricing

    Fastly · Accessed Official

  10. 10
    Bunny CDN documentation

    Bunny · Accessed Official

  11. 11
    Bunny CDN Smart Cache

    Bunny · Accessed Official

  12. 12
    Bunny pricing

    Bunny · Accessed Official