Azure Front Door vs Fastly: What are the differences?

Introduction

Azure Front Door and Fastly are both content delivery network (CDN) services that help improve the performance and availability of websites and web applications. While they serve similar purposes, there are key differences between the two services that make them suitable for different use cases.

1. Routing capabilities: Azure Front Door offers advanced routing capabilities, allowing you to create flexible routing rules based on various conditions such as geographic location, URL path, and HTTP headers. This enables you to make dynamic decisions on how to route incoming traffic. In contrast, Fastly provides a more limited set of routing options, primarily based on geographic regions.

2. Integration with Azure services: Azure Front Door seamlessly integrates with various Azure services, such as Azure Web Apps, Azure Functions, and Azure API Management. This integration enables you to easily leverage the power of other Azure services along with Front Door's CDN capabilities. Fastly, on the other hand, is a standalone CDN service that does not have the same level of integration with Azure services.

3. SSL/TLS termination: Azure Front Door supports SSL/TLS termination at the edge, allowing you to offload the computational overhead of SSL/TLS encryption and decryption from your backend servers. Fastly also offers SSL/TLS termination, but it requires you to handle SSL/TLS encryption and decryption on your origin servers.

4. Traffic management: Azure Front Door provides advanced traffic management features such as load balancing, session affinity, and automatic failover. These features help ensure high availability and optimal performance of your applications. Fastly, while offering some basic load balancing capabilities, does not have the same level of traffic management features as Azure Front Door.

5. Microsoft security certifications: Azure Front Door is backed by the security certifications and compliance standards of Microsoft, including ISO 27001, SOC 1 and 2, and HIPAA BAA. These certifications provide assurance that Front Door adheres to industry-leading security practices. Fastly also has its own security measures, but it may not have the same level of compliance certifications as Azure Front Door.

6. Caching flexibility: Fastly provides more flexibility in caching options, allowing you to finely control how content is cached and when it expires. It also offers Edge Dictionaries, which are key-value stores that enable you to store and retrieve data at the edge. Azure Front Door, while offering caching capabilities, may not provide the same level of customization and flexibility as Fastly.

In summary, Azure Front Door provides advanced routing capabilities, integration with Azure services, SSL/TLS termination at the edge, traffic management features, Microsoft security certifications, and caching capabilities. Fastly, on the other hand, offers more flexibility in caching options and might be a more suitable choice if fine-grained control over caching is a priority.