Company Overview

Fastly was founded in 2011 by Artur Bergman (former CTO of Wikia) and Art Min in San Francisco, California. It is a leading edge cloud platform known for high-performance CDN, instant cache purge (<150ms globally), and powerful VCL customization. Fastly serves top-tier internet companies including Twitter/X, GitHub, Stripe, New York Times, and Spotify.

Fastly went public on the NYSE in 2019 (NYSE: FSLY), launched Compute@Edge (WASM-based edge computing) in 2021, and acquired Signal Sciences in 2022 to strengthen its security portfolio. Fastly is widely regarded as Cloudflare's primary technology-focused competitor in the CDN and edge computing space.

Related providers: Fastly (CDN)

Key Milestones

  • 2011: Founded by Artur Bergman and Art Min in San Francisco
  • 2012: Launched Instant Purge (cache purge), setting an industry benchmark
  • 2014: Full TLS/SSL support with free certificates
  • 2017: Released Image Optimizer for real-time image processing
  • 2019: IPO on NYSE (FSLY), raised ~$180M
  • 2021: Launched Compute@Edge edge computing platform (WASM runtime)
  • 2022: Acquired Signal Sciences (WAF and security company), integrated as Edge Security
  • 2023: Launched Fastly EdgeWAF, unified web application firewall
  • 2024: Expanded Compute@Edge ecosystem with more programming languages
  • 2025+: Edge AI inference capabilities, expanding AI/ML use cases

Product Portfolio

  • CDN (VCL): High-performance content delivery with deep customization via Varnish Configuration Language
  • Compute@Edge: WebAssembly (WASM)-based edge computing platform supporting Rust, JavaScript, AssemblyScript
  • Edge Security (WAF/Bot/DDoS): Integrated web application firewall, bot management, and DDoS protection
  • Signal Sciences: Next-gen WAF supporting cloud-native and hybrid deployments
  • Image Optimizer: Real-time image optimization (resize, crop, compress, format conversion)
  • TLS/SSL: Free SSL/TLS certificate management
  • Load Balancer: Global load balancing
  • Streaming: Video streaming acceleration

Core Strengths

⚡ Instant Cache Purge — Industry's Fastest

Fastly's Instant Purge clears cache across all PoPs globally in under 150ms — far faster than any competitor, making it the gold standard for news and real-time content delivery.

🛠️ Deep VCL Customization

VCL enables powerful request processing customization — from routing and A/B testing to security policies, giving developers complete control over edge logic.

🔬 Compute@Edge — WASM-Powered Edge Computing

Compute@Edge runs WebAssembly applications with near-native performance and higher security than traditional containers. Developers write edge functions in Rust, JavaScript, AssemblyScript, and more.

🛡️ Signal Sciences Security

Signal Sciences provides a powerful cloud-native WAF that integrates seamlessly with modern DevOps workflows, ideal for API security and microservice architectures.

Global Network

Metric Data
PoPs 150+
Coverage Major cities worldwide
Network Capacity 100+ Tbps
Cache Purge <150ms globally

Market Position

Fastly's primary competitors in the CDN and edge cloud market include:

  • Cloudflare: Biggest rival, leading in market share and feature breadth; Fastly differentiates on technical depth and VCL customization
  • Akamai: CDN pioneer and enterprise market leader
  • AWS CloudFront: AWS's CDN offering, leveraging the AWS ecosystem
  • Google Cloud CDN: Powered by Google's global network
  • Edgio (post-bankruptcy): Former major independent CDN competitor