Fastly provides a powerful edge cloud platform that helps developers build, secure, and deliver fast digital experiences for global enterprises via a programmable CDN.
Fastly provides a powerful edge cloud platform that helps developers build, secure, and deliver fast digital experiences for global enterprises via a programmable CDN.
Fastly is a leading provider of edge cloud services, offering a platform designed to process, secure, and deliver applications as close to the end-user as possible. Founded in 2011 and headquartered in San Francisco, Fastly has grown from a specialized Content Delivery Network (CDN) into a comprehensive edge cloud platform. The company’s core offerings include a high-performance programmable CDN, edge computing services (Compute@Edge), advanced security solutions—including DDoS protection, Web Application Firewall (WAF), and bot management—and observability tools that provide real-time data insights.
Fastly serves a diverse range of high-growth and enterprise clients across industries such as e-commerce, media and entertainment, technology, and financial services. Notable customers include Pinterest, The New York Times, Stripe, and GitHub. The company’s market presence is defined by its ability to handle massive traffic spikes and its reputation for supporting complex, high-stakes digital environments. Throughout its history, Fastly has focused on replacing legacy, hardware-dependent delivery systems with a modern, software-defined architecture that allows companies to innovate at the speed of their code. Their acquisition of Signal Sciences in 2020 further solidified their position as a major player in the cybersecurity space, integrating developer-friendly security directly into the delivery pipeline.
Company Differentiation
Fastly distinguishes itself through a "developer-first" philosophy that treats infrastructure as code. Unlike legacy providers that evolved from hardware-centric origins, Fastly was built by developers for developers, fostering a culture of transparency and technical empowerment. This is most evident in their commitment to open-source standards—such as their heavy involvement in the development of WebAssembly (Wasm) and the Lucet runtime—and their "no black box" approach to configuration.
Their business model prioritizes agility and real-time control, moving away from the slow, ticket-based configuration changes common in the CDN industry. Fastly’s approach to customer success is deeply collaborative, often embedding their engineers alongside client teams to solve complex edge logic problems. This partnership-driven model, combined with a transparent pricing structure and a focus on empowering users to self-serve through robust APIs, sets them apart as a strategic partner for organizations that view their digital delivery as a core competitive advantage rather than a utility.
Network Services: The core CDN offering including Anycast routing, HTTP/3 support, and Instant Purge.
Compute: The serverless edge computing environment (formerly Compute@Edge) for running custom logic.
Security: Includes the Next-Gen WAF (Signal Sciences), Bot Management, and DDoS Protection.
Observability: Real-time logging, metrics, and 'Origin Inspector' for deep visibility into backend health.
Media Delivery: Specialized services for Video-on-Demand (VOD), Live Streaming, and Image Optimization.
Product Differentiation
Fastly’s product suite is built on a uniquely architected software-defined network that leverages high-density Points of Presence (PoPs). A primary differentiator is their use of the Varnish Configuration Language (VCL), which allows developers to write custom logic that executes at the edge. While competitors often require minutes or hours to propagate configuration changes or purge cached content, Fastly offers near-instant purging (typically under 150 milliseconds), enabling the delivery of dynamic, rapidly changing content that was previously uncacheable.
Furthermore, Fastly’s Compute@Edge platform represents a significant leap in edge computing. By utilizing WebAssembly, it provides a secure, polyglot execution environment with cold start times 100x faster than traditional serverless functions. On the security front, their Next-Gen WAF (powered by Signal Sciences) moves beyond brittle, regex-based rules to offer automated, threshold-based blocking that reduces false positives and simplifies maintenance. By integrating delivery, security, and compute into a single, programmable layer, Fastly provides a technical advantage for high-traffic sites that require both extreme performance and sophisticated logic at the network edge.
