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Amazon CloudFront vs Fastly: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this article, we will explore the key differences between Amazon CloudFront and Fastly, two popular content delivery network (CDN) services. Both CloudFront and Fastly are designed to improve the performance and speed of web applications, but they have some distinct differences that set them apart from each other.

  1. Network Size and Global Coverage: One major difference between Amazon CloudFront and Fastly is the size of their network and global coverage. CloudFront, being a service offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS), has an extensive global network with numerous edge locations spread across the world. These edge locations allow CloudFront to cache and serve content closer to end-users, resulting in faster response times. Fastly, on the other hand, has a smaller network compared to CloudFront, but it offers a high-performance and highly customizable CDN solution.

  2. Pricing and Cost Structure: Another significant difference between CloudFront and Fastly is their pricing and cost structure. CloudFront adopts a pay-as-you-go model, where you only pay for the data transfer and other services you actually use. Additionally, CloudFront offers tiered pricing based on the volume of data transferred. Fastly, on the other hand, offers different pricing plans that are based on various factors, such as the number of edge locations, support level, and additional features. Fastly's pricing structure allows customers to choose a plan that best suits their specific requirements.

  3. Ease of Use and Customization: When it comes to ease of use and customization options, CloudFront and Fastly offer different approaches. CloudFront is integrated with AWS services and provides a simplified setup process, making it easier for AWS customers to configure and manage their CDN. It also offers various features and tools to optimize content delivery. Fastly, on the other hand, offers a highly customizable CDN solution with an advanced configuration language called Varnish Configuration Language (VCL). This allows users to have fine-grained control over how their content is cached and delivered.

  4. Security and DDoS Protection: Both CloudFront and Fastly offer robust security and DDoS protection mechanisms, but they have different approaches to achieve this. CloudFront integrates seamlessly with other AWS services, such as AWS Shield, allowing users to leverage advanced security features and protection against various types of attacks. Fastly, on the other hand, offers a range of security features, including real-time threat intelligence, web application firewall (WAF), and bot detection, to ensure the security and availability of web applications.

  5. Real-time Analytics and Monitoring: CloudFront and Fastly provide real-time analytics and monitoring capabilities, but they differ in the level of detail and insights provided. CloudFront offers basic metrics and analytics through its AWS Management Console, including data transfer, requests, and cache hit rates. Fastly, however, provides a more comprehensive real-time analytics platform called BigQuery, which offers detailed insights into content delivery performance, audience segmentation, and other valuable metrics. Fastly's analytics platform is highly customizable and can integrate with other third-party analytics tools.

  6. Integration and Ecosystem: Finally, CloudFront and Fastly differ in terms of integration and ecosystem. CloudFront is tightly integrated with the AWS ecosystem, allowing seamless integration with other AWS services like Amazon S3, EC2, and Lambda. This makes it an ideal choice for customers already using AWS infrastructure. Fastly, on the other hand, provides integrations with various third-party services and tools, including popular Content Management Systems (CMS) and DevOps tools. It also offers APIs and developer-friendly features to enable easy integration into existing workflows.

In summary, Amazon CloudFront and Fastly have distinct differences in terms of network size and coverage, pricing and cost structure, ease of use and customization, security and DDoS protection, real-time analytics and monitoring, and integration and ecosystem. Understanding these differences is crucial when choosing the right CDN solution for your specific requirements.

Decisions about Amazon CloudFront and Fastly
Francesco Boffa

I don't think I have registered a domain in the last 10 years that hasn't been linked to CloudFlare within the first 2 hours from registration.

The benefits you get from even the free version of CloudFlare are amazing. From day 0: - 30/80% of bandwidth savings thanks to their CDN - Origin IP address protection - Managed SSL

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Pros of Amazon CloudFront
Pros of Fastly
  • 245
    Fast
  • 166
    Cdn
  • 157
    Compatible with other aws services
  • 125
    Simple
  • 108
    Global
  • 41
    Cheap
  • 36
    Cost-effective
  • 27
    Reliable
  • 19
    One stop solution
  • 9
    Elastic
  • 1
    Object store
  • 1
    HTTP/2 Support
  • 28
    Real-time updates
  • 26
    Fastest CDN
  • 22
    Powerful API
  • 20
    Great support
  • 14
    Great customer support
  • 7
    Instant Purging
  • 7
    Custom VCL
  • 6
    Good pricing
  • 6
    Tag-based Purging
  • 5
    HTTP/2 Support
  • 4
    Speed & functionality
  • 4
    Image processing on demande (Fastly IO)
  • 4
    Best CDN

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Cons of Amazon CloudFront
Cons of Fastly
  • 3
    UI could use some work
  • 1
    Invalidations take so long
  • 1
    Minimum $50/mo spend

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What is Amazon CloudFront?

Amazon CloudFront can be used to deliver your entire website, including dynamic, static, streaming, and interactive content using a global network of edge locations. Requests for your content are automatically routed to the nearest edge location, so content is delivered with the best possible performance.

What is Fastly?

Fastly's real-time content delivery network gives you total control over your content, unprecedented access to performance analytics, and the ability to instantly update content in 150 milliseconds.

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What companies use Amazon CloudFront?
What companies use Fastly?
See which teams inside your own company are using Amazon CloudFront or Fastly.
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What tools integrate with Amazon CloudFront?
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What are some alternatives to Amazon CloudFront and Fastly?
Akamai
If you've ever shopped online, downloaded music, watched a web video or connected to work remotely, you've probably used Akamai's cloud platform. Akamai helps businesses connect the hyperconnected, empowering them to transform and reinvent their business online. We remove the complexities of technology, so you can focus on driving your business faster forward.
CloudFlare
Cloudflare speeds up and protects millions of websites, APIs, SaaS services, and other properties connected to the Internet.
Google Cloud Storage
Google Cloud Storage allows world-wide storing and retrieval of any amount of data and at any time. It provides a simple programming interface which enables developers to take advantage of Google's own reliable and fast networking infrastructure to perform data operations in a secure and cost effective manner. If expansion needs arise, developers can benefit from the scalability provided by Google's infrastructure.
MaxCDN
The MaxCDN Content Delivery Network efficiently delivers your site’s static file through hundreds of servers instead of slogging through a single host. This "smart route" technology distributes your content to your visitors via the city closest to them.
Amazon S3
Amazon Simple Storage Service provides a fully redundant data storage infrastructure for storing and retrieving any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web
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