What is Fastly?

Fastly is a fully programmable edge cloud platform designed to optimize web and application performance, providing robust security and comprehensive observability solutions. Leveraging a software-defined global network, it delivers content with reduced latency, robust real-time caching, and dynamic scaling to ensure fast and reliable digital experiences for users worldwide. The platform integrates next-generation web application firewalls, instant purging, load balancing, log streaming, and edge computing for seamless management and protection of web assets, APIs, and applications.

Fastly’s services cater to a wide range of industries, including ecommerce, streaming media, travel, financial services, and digital publishing. With detailed analytics, developer-friendly controls, and customizable support packages, organizations benefit from enhanced control, scalability, and security. The platform also offers advanced features such as real-time threat mitigation, semantic API request caching, image optimization, and easy integration into existing CI/CD workflows to streamline digital operations and exceed user expectations.

Features

Programmable Edge Cloud: Fully programmable infrastructure for custom logic and application delivery at the edge.
Next-Gen Web Application Firewall: Advanced real-time protection against web application threats with flexible configuration.
Semantic Caching for LLM APIs: Adds semantic caching to popular large language model provider APIs to optimize AI workloads.
Instant Purge: Ultra-fast cache invalidation with an average purge time of 150ms.
Global CDN Network: Powerful global content delivery with high cache capacity and reduced latency.
Comprehensive Observability: Real-time metrics, logs, alerts, and insights for performance monitoring and troubleshooting.
Image Optimization: On-the-fly image transformation and delivery directly from the edge.
Bot and DDoS Protection: Automated, scalable protection against malicious bots and distributed denial-of-service attacks.
Edge Data Storage: Managed key-value and secret stores for sharing and securing data at the edge.
Developer-Friendly Platform: Comprehensive CLI tools, documentation, and integration with CI/CD pipelines.

Use Cases

Accelerating ecommerce website performance and ensuring secure retail transactions.
Delivering low-latency, high-quality media streaming experiences for a global audience.
Enhancing travel and hospitality booking systems with real-time dynamic content caching and API acceleration.
Securing financial services web apps and APIs with adaptable WAF and DDoS defense.
Optimizing digital publishing platforms to efficiently handle high-traffic breaking news and viral content.
Scaling SaaS and PaaS applications with reliable edge computing and instant scalability.
Implementing secure API access for AI/ML workloads through semantic caching.
Gaining actionable insights with real-time observability and log streaming for distributed applications.

FAQs

What is Fastly’s Free Tier?

Fastly’s Free Tier provides $50 per month worth of CDN traffic, unlimited requests with no throttling, and instant purging capabilities to help users evaluate and start using the platform.
How does Fastly improve website and application performance?

Fastly optimizes performance by delivering content through a powerful global network using advanced caching, edge computing, and real-time load balancing for reduced latency and faster user experiences.
What security features are included with Fastly?

Fastly offers comprehensive security, including web application firewall (WAF), DDoS protection, bot management, TLS/SSL management, and rate limiting to defend against a wide range of online threats.
Can Fastly be integrated with my existing CI/CD workflows?

Yes, Fastly provides developer-friendly APIs, CLI tools, and documentation to facilitate seamless integration into existing continuous integration and deployment workflows.