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Neither Fastly nor Cloudflare is universally faster. Fastly is worth testing first when cache control, programmable delivery, and rapid invalidation are priorities. Cloudflare is often the easier starting point for teams seeking an integrated CDN and security platform with a low-cost entry tier. The result for your users depends at least as much on cache policy, origin speed, geography, and routing as on the provider.
For a performance-critical service, compare both with the same origin, cache rules, security settings, and user locations. Measure warm and cold cache behavior, regional p95 latency, and real page experience—not just ping or one TTFB reading.
What “performance” means for a CDN
A CDN can affect several parts of a request, and a single number rarely describes the whole experience:
- DNS lookup and connection setup: Time to resolve the hostname and establish TCP/TLS or QUIC connections.
- TTFB: Time to first byte. It includes network and edge work, and for a cache miss it can include the trip to the origin and its application response.
- Time to last byte and throughput: Important for large downloads, video segments, and software releases.
- Cache-hit and cache-miss latency: A warm edge response and a request that must fetch from origin are different workloads.
- p95 and p99 latency, error rate, and availability: Tail behavior matters to users and APIs, not just the median.
- FCP, LCP, and INP: Browser experience measures. LCP can remain slow even when TTFB improves, because images, JavaScript, render-blocking CSS, and client-side work still matter. INP reflects interaction responsiveness, not CDN delivery alone.
- Purge propagation: How quickly an invalidation takes effect where users request the object.
A useful simplified model is: end-user latency ≈ DNS + connection setup + edge processing + cache lookup + (origin round trip on a miss) + transfer + browser rendering. A low ping or fast TLS handshake is only one part of that chain.
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Fastly vs. Cloudflare at a glance
| Dimension | Fastly | Cloudflare |
|---|---|---|
| General fit | Performance-oriented edge delivery with programmable caching and operational control. | Broad platform combining CDN, DNS, security, edge compute, and related services. |
| Cache configuration | Offers detailed, programmable delivery and cache behavior. | Provides Cache Rules, custom cache keys, Tiered Cache, and Cache Analytics. |
| Purge | Markets Instant Purge and reports an average regional mean under 150 ms; verify against your purge mode and locations. | Provides purge controls; measure the chosen method and propagation rather than assume one universal time. |
| Protocols and compute | Supports HTTP/3 over QUIC and offers Fastly Compute. | Supports HTTP/3 and offers Workers and a broader developer platform. |
| Entry pricing signal | Pricing page lists Network Services Basic at $1,500/month and Starter at $6,000/month; package terms and traffic conditions apply. | Network & CDN page lists Free, Pro, Business, and custom Contract pricing. The Free plan is positioned for personal or hobby projects that are not business-critical. |
These are different commercial models, not like-for-like performance tiers. Fastly’s listed Network Services packages include request-volume allowances and geographic traffic requirements; Cloudflare’s plan features and limits vary by plan. Confirm current terms directly before budgeting. See Fastly pricing and Cloudflare plans.
Static assets: where cache behavior is easiest to compare
Hashed JavaScript, CSS, fonts, and versioned images are usually strong CDN candidates: the URL changes when the content changes, making long-lived caching safer. For these objects, compare warm-cache latency, hit ratio, fill behavior after a deployment, compression, and delivery of both small files and large objects. A 10 KB stylesheet does not predict how a 100 MB video or binary download will perform.
Fastly describes its network as using fewer, more powerful points of presence to keep more content cached at the edge. That is Fastly’s architectural positioning, not proof that its network will be faster for every audience. Likewise, the number of advertised locations is not a reliable speed ranking: ISP peering, routing, object placement, and cache efficiency can matter more.
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Dynamic HTML and APIs: the origin often decides
A CDN does not make a slow database query or application response intrinsically fast. If HTML or API responses are not cached, a request still has to reach application infrastructure; the CDN may reduce some network distance or apply edge logic, but origin location and processing time can dominate TTFB.
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Separate these workloads in testing:
- Public cacheable HTML: Test a page that can safely be shared across users.
- Personalized HTML: Confirm whether cookies, authorization, or user-specific data intentionally bypass cache.
- Cacheable JSON: Use a response with explicit, safe cache rules and a realistic key.
- Authenticated or uncached API: Measure origin time, edge processing, and security checks separately.
- Misses and revalidation: Test first fetches and unchanged objects that can be validated with origin headers.
- Origin failure: Verify whether stale content or a fallback is served and what users see.
Cookies, authorization headers, query-string variations, and incorrect Vary behavior can split traffic into many cache keys or bypass cache entirely. Edge compute can help with routing, headers, or lightweight personalization, but invoking a Worker or Compute function on every request also adds work. For database-backed APIs, the database’s location and latency frequently matter more than the CDN brand.
Cloudflare documents cache states including Dynamic, Revalidated, Expired, and Miss, and recommends appropriate Edge Cache TTLs, Cache Rules, Tiered Cache, custom cache keys, and Cache Analytics. Its guidance also discusses ETag and Last-Modified revalidation. See Cloudflare’s cache performance guidance.
Cache policy is often more important than the provider
Review the response headers and key design before comparing CDN speed:
Cache-Control: publicands-maxagecan express shared-cache policy; use them only when sharing the response is safe.max-agecontrols freshness for clients and caches according to the applicable directives. Choose values based on how quickly content must change.stale-while-revalidatecan allow a stale response while a fresh one is fetched;stale-if-errorcan permit stale delivery when origin errors occur. Confirm provider behavior and policy before relying on either.ETagandLast-Modifiedlet a cache validate whether an object changed rather than always downloading it again.Vary, cookies, authorization, and query strings affect whether requests share an object. Normalize or exclude irrelevant tracking parameters only when application semantics permit it.- Use purge-by-URL or tag/key invalidation deliberately. Cache tags or surrogate keys can invalidate related content without a global purge where supported by the configured platform.
Track hit ratio, miss ratio, revalidation rate, origin fetch time, edge processing, and p95/p99 TTFB together. A nominally faster edge can lose in production if its rules create more misses. Purging everything can also trigger a cache stampede; plan cache warming after releases for high-demand objects.
Purging, configuration changes, and freshness
Fastly markets Instant Purge and reports an average regional mean purge time below 150 ms. Treat that as a vendor-reported figure, not a guarantee for every object, purge type, or region. Configuration deployment is a separate operation from object invalidation, and both should be tested in the way your team will actually use them.
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Do not conclude that one provider is universally faster at purging based on a marketing claim or one request. Test the same object from multiple locations, record when its content changes, and distinguish hard invalidation from any soft/stale-serving behavior. A simple check for response headers is:
curl -sS -D - -o /dev/null https://example.com/asset.cssFor a controlled propagation test, request a versioned object, purge it using the intended production method, then poll it from multiple regions. Repeat at least 20 times and report median, p95, and worst observed propagation time. Include the object state, cache headers, and purge method in the results. Avoid a purge-all test on a live production cache unless its origin can handle the resulting fill load.
Geography, DNS, and mobile networks
Segment results by where and how users connect: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, India, Australia and New Zealand, Latin America, and Africa may produce different rankings. Include China only if the service is legally and operationally supported there. Test residential and mobile networks as well as cloud regions; cloud-to-cloud measurements do not represent all consumer paths.
DNS and routing affect which edge a client reaches. Distinguish the authoritative DNS provider from the recursive resolver used by the client, and record IPv4 versus IPv6, mobile versus fixed broadband, VPN or corporate proxy use, and the ISP. A 2025 study of public DNS resolvers and multiple CDNs found regional variation in resolver performance and client-to-edge mappings, illustrating why a global average can hide local differences: study details.
Do not infer speed from point-of-presence counts. Test from the markets that matter to your business and report each region separately. An extra CDN or proxy in front of another can introduce another hop; Cloudflare specifically warns that third-party CDN layering can add a hop and affect DDoS mitigation accuracy in some configurations. See its guidance on third-party CDNs.
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Security and reliability are part of performance
WAF inspection, bot management, rate limits, and API protection may add edge processing to clean requests. Misconfigured challenges can also obstruct legitimate users. But security is not simply a latency penalty: effective filtering can prevent bot abuse, attack traffic, and origin saturation that would otherwise degrade or interrupt service.
Compare the same rules and challenge behavior on both providers, then check normal-request latency and behavior during controlled security tests. Cloudflare documents its DDoS detection and mitigation design and says certain managed L3/4 and HTTP DDoS protections average up to three seconds for mitigation. That is a provider-described attack-mitigation measure, not a clean-request page-load benchmark. See Cloudflare’s DDoS protection documentation.
Reliability testing should cover regional failures, origin health checks and failover, stale serving, configuration rollback, and the distinction between a provider’s control plane and the data plane serving requests. Review incident histories and independent availability data, and run your own synthetic monitoring. Multi-CDN can be appropriate for resilience, but adds routing, cache consistency, security, and operational complexity; test the complete request path rather than assuming another provider automatically improves it.
Edge compute: compare equivalent work, not product labels
Fastly Compute and Cloudflare Workers can handle tasks such as request rewriting, authentication checks, A/B assignment, header manipulation, geo-routing, and lightweight API aggregation. Compare the same code path and inputs, with equivalent language/runtime behavior, cold or warm state, CPU limits, I/O, external calls, and caching. A function that waits on a database or remote API is primarily measuring that dependency, not the edge runtime.
Include the function’s added latency and cost in the test. Fastly lists request and vCPU-millisecond pricing dimensions for Compute; Cloudflare’s pages expose separate compute and storage pricing signals. Check current service terms and billable dimensions at Fastly pricing and Cloudflare’s plans. Neither provider’s edge runtime should be assumed equivalent to a conventional server for long-running or heavy-CPU workloads.
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What the available head-to-head evidence says—and does not say
Fastly reports that 99 websites identified as moving from Cloudflare to Fastly saw a 33% improvement in 75th-percentile TTFB and a 24% improvement in LCP/load-time-related measures. Its analysis uses Chrome UX Report observations from 2022–2024 for origins observed on Cloudflare and then Fastly. It is first-party observational research, not a randomized simultaneous benchmark; migrations may involve other configuration or site changes, and the sample does not establish what another site will experience. Read Fastly’s study and methodology and its comparison material as vendor evidence, not a universal prediction.
The useful takeaway is that a migration can improve real-world results, but the mechanism and fit must be tested for your workload. A single provider study cannot settle your regional cache-hit rate, API latency, purge needs, or bill.
Pricing: compare the monthly model, not the headline number
As listed on the providers’ pricing pages at the research date, Cloudflare Network & CDN showed Free at $0, Pro at $20 per month billed annually or $25 monthly, Business at $200 billed annually or $250 monthly, and custom Contract pricing. Its page positions Free for personal or hobby projects that are not business-critical. Fastly listed Network Services Basic at $1,500 per month for 100 million requests and Starter at $6,000 per month for 500 million requests, with higher volumes requiring sales contact. Fastly also listed 10 million free Compute requests per month, followed by usage pricing beginning at $0.50 per million requests. Terms, included features, traffic geography, and other charges matter; confirm current details with each provider.
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How to run an apples-to-apples test
- Use identical assets and origins: Include a 10 KB asset, a 1 MB CSS or JavaScript file, a 100 MB media or binary object, public HTML, personalized HTML, cacheable JSON, uncached API, a purged object, and an origin-failure case.
- Match configuration: Use the same origin region, DNS provider where possible, certificate type, compression, cache headers and keys, security rules, image transformations, request headers, and cookies. If testing pure CDN delivery, disable equivalent WAF/bot processing on both, then run a separate security-on test.
- Separate cache states: Run cold-cache and warm-cache tests; record response headers and each provider’s cache status. Include revalidation and post-deployment fill behavior.
- Test from real audience locations: Use multiple residential, mobile, and cloud networks in relevant regions, and repeat at different times of day. Record IPv4/IPv6 and HTTP version.
- Collect enough samples: Gather at least 20–30 observations per location and workload. Report median, p95, and p99 where sample size permits, plus errors and cache-hit rate—not just the best result.
- Measure browser outcomes too: Use real-user monitoring or synthetic browser tests for LCP and other user-facing metrics. A command-line TTFB test cannot substitute for rendered-page experience.
Basic request timing:
curl -sS -D headers.txt -o /dev/null
-w 'dns=%{time_namelookup} connect=%{time_connect} tls=%{time_appconnect} first_byte=%{time_starttransfer} total=%{time_total} size=%{size_download}n'
https://example.com/Repeated samples, with timestamps and response fields:
for i in $(seq 1 30); do
curl -sS -o /dev/null
-w "$(date -u +%FT%TZ),%{http_code},%{time_namelookup},%{time_connect},%{time_appconnect},%{time_starttransfer},%{time_total},%{size_download}n"
https://example.com/asset.css
doneCompare HTTP/3 and HTTP/2 from the same client, URL, payload, and cache state:
curl --http3 -sS -o /dev/null
-w 'http3: dns=%{time_namelookup} connect=%{time_connect} tls=%{time_appconnect} start=%{time_starttransfer} total=%{time_total}n'
https://example.com/
curl --http2 -sS -o /dev/null
-w 'http2: dns=%{time_namelookup} connect=%{time_connect} tls=%{time_appconnect} start=%{time_starttransfer} total=%{time_total}n'
https://example.com/Confirm your local curl build supports HTTP/3; otherwise it cannot provide a valid protocol comparison. A single location, warm-cache run, or cloud-server test is not a global verdict. ICMP ping does not measure HTTP delivery, and one TTFB does not prove better LCP.
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Which provider is more likely to fit?
- Consider Fastly if rapid invalidation, fine-grained cache logic, programmable delivery, and release control are operational priorities—and your team can support its pricing model and CDN-specific operations.
- Consider Cloudflare if you want CDN, DNS, SSL, DDoS protection, WAF, and related capabilities in one platform, value self-service onboarding, or need a low-cost way to begin. Do not assume its Free plan is appropriate for a business-critical service.
- Test both for high-volume media, global SaaS, commerce, or API workloads where regional latency, cache behavior, and security configuration have material business impact.
- Neither will fix the root cause when most traffic is uncached and personalized, the origin or database is slow, or routing to your users is poor. Diagnose those constraints before paying for a migration.
For a proof of concept, define success thresholds before switching: regional p95 TTFB, cache-hit ratio, LCP, purge propagation, error rate, attack handling, and total modeled cost. Run both against the same origin, keep a rollback path, and shift traffic gradually if the results justify a change.
Quick Recap
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