Fastly vs KeyCDN
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Fastly and KeyCDN.
Quick Verdict
3.7/5
Fastly
0 reviews
3.9/5
KeyCDN
0 reviews
KeyCDN is rated higher (3.9 vs 3.7). Fastly is a high-performance programmable CDN used by GitHub, Spotify, and the New York Times. Compute@Edge for serverless. Real-time log streaming, advanced VCL configuration, and instant cache purge. KeyCDN is a Swiss CDN provider focusing on privacy and simplicity. From $0.04/GB with a $4/month minimum charge. 60+ data centers in 40+ countries. GDPR-compliant, HTTP/2, and edge rules for customization.
Fastly Programmable CDN used by GitHub, New York Times | KeyCDN Swiss CDN from $0.04/GB — privacy-focused | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.7 (0 reviews) | 3.9 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | freemium | usage-based |
| Starting price | Free tier available✓ | From $0.04/mo |
| Best for | Engineering-led content, media, e-commerce and API platforms that need programmable caching, instant purge and real-time logs on a global edge network | Privacy-conscious developers and EU/Swiss businesses with variable traffic who want flat, all-features-included CDN delivery with pay-as-you-go pricing and dense European coverage. |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ✓ | |
| DDoS protection | ||
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ✓ | |
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | 100+ city-level PoPs across North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia/NZ | [39 countries across NA, EU, APAC, LATAM, Africa — see specs] |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tierapi accesseu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenter | free tiereu datacenterus datacenterapac datacentergdpr compliant |
| Visit Fastly → | Visit KeyCDN → | |
Fastly
Pros
- + Instant Purge with mean global purge under 150 ms and real-time log streaming into your own observability stack
- + Deep programmability: VCL plus Fastly Compute on the same edge network
- + Real free tier: 100 GB bandwidth, 500,000 requests and five TLS domains free every month
- + Large, high-density PoP footprint (100+ cities, 622 Tbps) with strong coverage in Europe and India
- + Unlimited layer 3/4 DDoS mitigation included, HTTP/3 and QUIC, full IPv6 dual-stack support
Cons
- - VCL and cache architecture have a real learning curve — overkill for simple caching needs
- - Regional bandwidth skew: $0.28/GB in Africa, India and South Korea versus $0.12/GB in NA/EU
- - Request pricing table and reviewer-quoted rates disagree; WAF pricing is unpublished
- - Free tier requires a credit card; first Compute deploy starts a limited trial
- - Legacy pre-November-2025 accounts sit on different ($50/month) terms than new sign-ups
KeyCDN
Pros
- + Transparent published usage pricing with tiered rates down to $0.01/GB over 100 TB
- + Every account gets every feature — no enterprise tier gating of purge, TLS, Origin Shield or secure tokens
- + Independent, non-federated Swiss network: 60+ data centers, Tier 1 connectivity, 40 Gbps edge uplinks
- + 14-day trial with no credit card required and free 24/7 support for all customers
- + Strong European PoP density and Swiss/GDPR privacy positioning
Cons
- - No published uptime SLA — no contractual availability commitment or service credits
- - No ongoing free tier, and a $4/month minimum charge plus $49 minimum payment
- - Thinner coverage in Africa, South Asia and parts of Latin America than hyperscale CDNs
- - Add-on fees (extra zones, syslog forwarding, image processing, Push storage) can exceed delivery cost
- - Small independent vendor: narrower integration ecosystem and no edge compute platform
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