Cloudflare vs Fastly
A comparison of Cloudflare and Fastly built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
The short answer
- Pick Cloudflare if
- Teams that want CDN, DDoS protection and WAF bundled together and effectively unmetered on bandwidth — the pricing axis here is feature tier, not gigabytes served.
- Pick Fastly if
- High-traffic sites where volume-discount tiers actually kick in, or teams that want CDN and edge compute (Fastly Compute) on the same platform.
3 sourced criteria separate them:
- Entry paid plan
- Cloudflare: Pro plan: $20/month billed annually, or $25/month billed monthly.
- Fastly: Basic Network Services: $1,500/month, including 100M requests.
- Pricing model
- Cloudflare: Tiered flat-rate monthly plans (Free, Pro, Business, Enterprise) that scale by feature set — bandwidth itself is unmetered on every plan, unlike most CDNs in this category.
- Fastly: Usage-based with built-in volume-discount tiers — the per-GB and per-request rate falls as monthly usage rises.
- Image optimization
- Cloudflare: Lossless Image Optimization included from the Pro plan, alongside AMP support.
- Fastly: Image Optimizer: $0.50 per 10,000 requests for 100K-10M monthly requests, with volume discounts scaling down to $0.01 per 10,000 requests beyond 5 billion monthly requests.
Pick the criteria you care about. The chart counts how many of them lean toward each provider — the same read as scanning the bars below, just totalled for the ones you chose.
Cloudflare 0
Fastly 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | Cloudflare | Fastly |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Entry paid plan | Pro plan: $20/month billed annually, or $25/month billed monthly. | Basic Network Services: $1,500/month, including 100M requests. |
| Pricing model | Tiered flat-rate monthly plans (Free, Pro, Business, Enterprise) that scale by feature set — bandwidth itself is unmetered on every plan, unlike most CDNs in this category. | Usage-based with built-in volume-discount tiers — the per-GB and per-request rate falls as monthly usage rises. |
| CDN | ||
| Image optimization | Lossless Image Optimization included from the Pro plan, alongside AMP support. | Image Optimizer: $0.50 per 10,000 requests for 100K-10M monthly requests, with volume discounts scaling down to $0.01 per 10,000 requests beyond 5 billion monthly requests. |
Where they differ.
Entry paid plan
- Cloudflare
- Pro plan: $20/month billed annually, or $25/month billed monthly.
- Fastly
- Basic Network Services: $1,500/month, including 100M requests.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Cloudflare Network & CDN Plans ↗
“$20 /mo billed annually, or $25/mo billed monthly.”
Read 2026-09-11 · official pricing
- Fastly Pricing ↗
“$1,500 per month. 100M Requests.”
Read 2026-09-11 · official pricing
Pricing model
- Cloudflare
- Tiered flat-rate monthly plans (Free, Pro, Business, Enterprise) that scale by feature set — bandwidth itself is unmetered on every plan, unlike most CDNs in this category.
- Fastly
- Usage-based with built-in volume-discount tiers — the per-GB and per-request rate falls as monthly usage rises.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Cloudflare Network & CDN Plans ↗
“Unmetered DDoS Protection, CDN [on the Free plan already].”
Read 2026-09-11 · official pricing
- Fastly Pricing ↗
“Spend less as you use more with our built-in pricing tiers.”
Read 2026-09-11 · official pricing
Image optimization
- Cloudflare
- Lossless Image Optimization included from the Pro plan, alongside AMP support.
- Fastly
- Image Optimizer: $0.50 per 10,000 requests for 100K-10M monthly requests, with volume discounts scaling down to $0.01 per 10,000 requests beyond 5 billion monthly requests.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Cloudflare Network & CDN Plans ↗
“Lossless Image Optimization, Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP).”
Read 2026-09-11 · official pricing
- Fastly Pricing ↗
“Image Optimizer. 100,000 - 10 Million requests: $0.50 per 10,000 requests. [Scaling to] $0.01 per 10,000 requests beyond 5 billion monthly requests.”
Read 2026-09-11 · official pricing
When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.
Which should you choose?
Choose Cloudflare if…
Teams that want CDN, DDoS protection and WAF bundled together and effectively unmetered on bandwidth — the pricing axis here is feature tier, not gigabytes served.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Choose Fastly if…
High-traffic sites where volume-discount tiers actually kick in, or teams that want CDN and edge compute (Fastly Compute) on the same platform.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Consider something else if…
- Cloudflare: The workload needs Cloudflare's edge-compute or storage products alongside the CDN — those are priced and profiled separately (see Cloudflare Pages, Cloudflare R2), not part of this plan.
- Fastly: Traffic is modest — the $1,500/month entry plan for dedicated network services is priced for scale a smaller site won't reach, where a pay-as-you-go CDN has no equivalent floor.
Documented by only one.
These criteria are published by one provider and not the other. An absence here means we have not found a source, not that the feature is missing.
Questions this comparison answers.
Entry paid plan: Cloudflare or Fastly?
Cloudflare: Pro plan: $20/month billed annually, or $25/month billed monthly.
Fastly: Basic Network Services: $1,500/month, including 100M requests.
Should I choose Cloudflare or Fastly?
Pick Cloudflare if Teams that want CDN, DDoS protection and WAF bundled together and effectively unmetered on bandwidth — the pricing axis here is feature tier, not gigabytes served.
Pick Fastly if High-traffic sites where volume-discount tiers actually kick in, or teams that want CDN and edge compute (Fastly Compute) on the same platform.