Fastly CDN Reviews

fastly cdn review

Fastly CDN established in 2011, Fastly has only been a short period in the CDN market. Nonetheless, they got big names during that time, such as Facebook, Vogue, Buzzfeed, and Kickstarter. Young and rapidly growing, Fastly promotes itself as a next-generation CDN through offices in San Francisco, New York, London, and Tokyo.

About Fastly CDN Company

Another major player in the CDN business is quick. The business was founded in 2011 and, similar to Cloudflare, raised capital of more than 175 million dollars from different investors. The larger corporate customers prefer to aim quickly because they have a variety of high power PoPs that are able to handle large amounts of traffic. Some of its most significant customers include:

    • Github
    • Buzzfeed
    • Dollar Shave Club
    • Wired
    • Imgur

They also supplied a number of other popular brands with their CDN service. While many renowned businesses use Fastly, it can not be the best solution for all applications. That’s why we will describe and discuss in this Fastly CDN analysis some key aspects of their operation, such as network, features, and pricing. Based on the following details, you should be able to determine if Fastly CDN suits you well or not.

What is Fastly CDN?

The content distribution network is rapidly transmitting content.

The goal is always to reduce latency for CDNs. Latency is the pause when the consumer asks for the exact moment a response is received. The higher the latency, the worse the experience for consumers. CDNs minimize latency by taking the content to the user’s venue. Imagine: Berlin is about 5,724 miles from Los Angeles. It would take around 300 milliseconds for a LA user to receive a response from a server in Berlin for an image request. If the same user asks for a picture from a San Bernardino server 55 miles away, the response is obtained in approximately 10 milliseconds.

The difference in this example may seem negligible, mainly because we use milliseconds. But since the average weight of the page is 3 megabytes, which require 30 round trips for request-response, the difference in latency is certainly perceptible. Furthermore, browsers can’t make all of those requests at once, which now seemed small, and no user likes a sluggish web site.

Fastly’s CDN service is provided at various locations from the web caching servers.

In order to reduce latency, users must be able to access nearby caches. It is almost difficult to guarantee, however, that caches are accessible to all potential users. To this effect, Fast groupings are cached into clusters called POPs distributed in different regions worldwide, each strategically located in major population centers worldwide.

With these POPs in place, user requests are easily redirected to the POP nearest to them so that it takes less time to deliver content to end-users.

The organization holds almost 18 PPs in North America, eight in Europe, five in Asia, six in Australia, two in South America and one in Africa.

How does Fastly Work?

CDNs typically allow clients to directly upload content to distributed servers. Quick, on the other hand, the content from original servers can be fetched and stored by request in caches. This approach is referred to as a reverse proxy.

Fastly does not need cache full copies of servers in POPs by using this form. In a process called supply, these conditions are easily configured by customers:

    • What content objects will be cached?
    • How long content objects will be cached?
    • Who can access cached content?
    • Content encryption
    • When content objects are deleted from the cache?

Customers easily decide where the original content will be obtained from the territories, servers, and applications. The nearest cache for the user is when a request is sent, the content from the original server is retrieved, stored in the cache, and sent the reply to the end-user.

How does Fastly Improve Site Performance?

When an end-user first requests the same content object, Fastly can deliver the content immediately by returning the cache. It quickly only fetches the original server if the content expires on the basis of the customer configuration or is invalidated.

An instant purging mechanism distinguishes between legacy CDNs.

With Fastly, customers do not have to think about upgrading the content in caches. Just by sending a short message to invalidate the content, caches are cleared immediately. Instant purge allows fast clients to update user-facing assets in about 200 milliseconds, which may take up to an hour to migrate from the legacy CDN method.

Instant elimination also helps customers to quickly serve dynamic content, which legacy CDNs can not offer. Any HTTP request can be cached with Fastly. This allows the dynamic page to be easily retrieved from the original server and the customers must only submit a cleanup request when the database model changes. There are many circumstances in which customers can easily exploit this by simply inserting a hook in the application model stage.

Fastly CDN Network

At present, Fastly’s PoP network is deeply active in the US, Australia and New Zealand, and Asia. They have a total of 29 entries, with two of them in London. The following shows both its edge server presence on a world map and a full list of the location of each node.

North AmericaSouth AmericaEUAsiaAustralia & New Zealand
AshburnSão PauloAmsterdamDubaiAuckland
AtlantaFrankfurtHong KongBrisbane
BostonLondon x 2TokyoMelbourne
ChicagoStockholmOsakaPerth
DallasSingaporeSydney
DenverTokyoWellington
Los Angeles
Miami
New York
San Jose
Seattle
Toronto

Fastly CDN Pricing

Pricing is partially dependent on a pay as you go. Customers are however paid a total of $50 a month, whether or not bandwidth usage costs too much. So you have to pay at least $50 per month and if your use of bandwidth ends up costing more than $50, you’re paid depending on your use.

Pricing is easily divided into 2 separate categories:

    • Bandwidth
    • HTTP requests (per 10,000)

The table below explains the quality costs for both groups.

1. Fastly CDN Bandwidth based plan

The first price group includes the bandwidth used. The prices differ depending on when the visitors ask for the resource and amount you are using (prices have decreased from $0.04 and $0.05 once you have exceeded more than 10 TB).

Per GB RateNorth AmericaEuropeAustralia & New ZealandAsia-PacificBrazil
First 10TB$0.12$0.12$0.19$0.19$0.280
Beyond 10 TB$0.08$0.08$0.14$0.14$0.240

2. Fastly HTTP requests (per 10,000)

Fees often easily rely on the number of HTTP requests used. This price structure is similar to Cloudfront as defined in our analysis of Cloudfront. However, in comparison to Cloudfront, the same amount is paid if the requests are HTTP or HTTPS. The prices are based on a request basis of 10,000 and differ depending on the venue.

Per 10,000 Requests RateNorth AmericaEuropeAustralia & New ZealandAsia-PacificBrazil
All Requests$0.0075$0.009$0.009$0.009$0.0160

 

Fastly CDN Features

It’s quickly the next generation of CDNs and we must remember that their dynamic delivery of content was very good. Advanced instant purging and real-time analysis are jewels that build the impression that you use a microscope for your tools. It can be important at a global level to see what is common when and where, and adapt accordingly. Complete Fastly’s 29 PoPs, spread across all continents, and you will achieve decent results. Optimized for mobile and API content, private CDN servers can be used.

Fastly CDN Speed

Speed up the delivery of customized content such as buy cart content, login posts and custom blocks for the display of ‘last view items’

Accelerate the delivery of customized content such as buy cart material, login messages, and personalized block displays to “last viewed items” or suggestions Cache entire web pages with Edge Side Integration (ESI), a Web standard that enables our cache components to mix and match cacheable and inconsiderable material.

Instantly Update Content Globally

Distribute your eCommerce platform across a global network consisting of strategically placed points of presence (POPs) in real-time Instantly and automatically delete invalid objects, so that your visitors can always see the most accurate data through a multi-channel strategy from inside Magento’s backend.

Easy To Install & Use

  • Install Fastly’s free, open-source extension in less than 30 minutes
  • For example, set custom TTLs for certain pages or types of content, disable caching for specific content such as shopping cart details, and use debug options to help uncover possible problems
  • Purge requests can be triggered through an API call without logging into your Fastly account.

FastlyCDN FAQ:

Why do I need Fastly CDN?

As the Internet continues to change, users require improved experiences. It quickly ensures better user experiences and high performance on every platform, moving data and applications closer to users.

Thanks to Fastly’s an obvious advantage, they call some of the biggest names across various verticals of their customers. The New York Times was able to provide seamless updates in real-time for 2 million viewers on the Vimeo Video site for elections, which has reduced the number of response times in the world by 50 percent in APAC strip and reduced the time taken to load the check-out form by 80 percent. The commercial benefits of using Fastly’s CDN can not be known.

Company cost savings by bandwidth and storage costs Optimized workflows by improved control and flexibility Enhanced protection and user trust by securing secure HTTPS sites for all customer assets

Fastly CDN Reviews Conclusion

CDN is rapidly a well-established business with a wide range of features available and a relatively dispersed PoP network. However, their pricing allows consumers to pay at least $50 a month. Given this expense, many small to medium-sized companies are not able to justify their expenditure as their use of bandwidth is not adequate.

If your web property produces a lot of traffic, the quantity of bandwidth and HTTP requests will simply be paid to you. Hopefully, this fast CDN analysis will give you some insight into the pricing structure, network availability, and collection of features of the service. With this knowledge, you should be able to decide with confidence whether Fastly CDN is the right option for you.

Mark Funk
Mark Funk is an experienced information security specialist who works with enterprises to mature and improve their enterprise security programs. Previously, he worked as a security news reporter.