Fastly Compute@Edge vs Cloudflare
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Fastly Compute@Edge and Cloudflare.
Quick Verdict
3.8/5
Fastly Compute@Edge
0 reviews
4.3/5
Cloudflare
0 reviews
Cloudflare is rated higher (4.3 vs 3.8). Fastly Compute@Edge runs WebAssembly serverless functions at Fastly's edge PoPs globally. Ultra-low latency, near-instant startup, and support for Rust, JavaScript, Go, and other WASM-compiled languages. Global network that speeds up and protects websites with CDN caching, DDoS protection, free SSL and DNS. Free plan; Pro costs $20/month billed annually ($25 monthly).
 Fastly Compute@Edge Serverless on Fastly's programmable CDN edge | Cloudflare Global CDN and DDoS protection with object storage | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.8 (0 reviews) | 4.3 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | freemium | freemium |
| Starting price | Free tier available✓ | From $20/mo |
| Best for | Latency-sensitive edge logic — personalization, auth, routing, API gateways, streaming — especially for teams already on Fastly's CDN or requiring per-request sandbox isolation | Websites and SaaS front ends that want a free or flat-priced global CDN with DDoS protection and TLS included — and can accept proxying all traffic through one vendor. |
| 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 | Global — 300+ cities |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tierapi accesseu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenter | free tiers3 compatibleddos protectioneu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenterapi accessipv6terraform provider |
| Visit Fastly Compute@Edge → | Visit Cloudflare → | |
Fastly Compute@Edge
Pros
- + Per-request WebAssembly sandboxes with very fast startup — effectively no cold starts
- + Generous free allowances: 10 million requests and 100 million vCPU-milliseconds free every month
- + Billing by requests and vCPU only (duration meter removed for new purchases) rewards efficient code
- + Runs globally on Fastly's 100+ PoP network with HTTP/3, IPv6 and DDoS mitigation included
- + Official SDKs for Rust, JavaScript, Go and C++, plus KV Store, Secret Store, Object Store and Fanout
Cons
- - WASM compilation and capability-based sandboxing add real tooling friction versus mainstream serverless
- - Free-trial state on first deploy, account-type-dependent limits, and two legacy pricing regimes complicate planning
- - Edge state stores use Fastly-specific APIs — no S3-compatible or Redis-compatible interface
- - Outside the official SDK languages, you are a pioneer; long-running workloads do not fit
- - Production use pushes toward a sales conversation rather than pure self-serve
Cloudflare
Pros
- + Unmetered bandwidth and requests on every plan, including Free
- + Free managed WAF ruleset, Universal SSL and unmetered DDoS protection by default
- + 330+ city network with Anycast routing and no region pricing
- + Flat per-domain pricing is easy to budget; no egress surprises
- + Terraform provider and full API for configuration as code
Cons
- - No uptime SLA below the Business plan
- - Per-domain billing gets expensive for domain portfolios
- - Advanced WAF tuning and rate limiting are plan-gated
- - Proxy architecture is a concentration risk during network-level incidents
- - Large feature surface means caching misconfigurations can go unnoticed
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