Content delivery networks · September 2026 Edition
Cloudflare vs Fastly
Eleven of twelve models named Cloudflare first on the direct prompt; zero named Fastly. Both were named by all twelve models and Cloudflare carries 64 labels and Fastly 49, so the shares are not directly comparable.
Named in eight categories this edition.
Named in three categories this edition.
First-choice share80%2%Of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, 0 to 100.
Negative rate9%18%Negative labels as a share of the product's labels, 0 to 100.
Rank in category#1#3A position in a field of 8; printed, not drawn.
Labels6449A count; the two differ.
The two percentage rows are drawn on one 0 to 100 track, Cloudflare reading right to left. Rank and label count are printed, not drawn.Amazon CloudFront was named alongside these two in ten of the twelve direct answers. Cloudflare vs Bunny.net · Bunny.net vs Fastly
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all twelve models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category; every quote names the model and the prompt it came from. Both figures come from the content delivery networks page.
By framing
How many of the twelve models made each the first choice, per way of asking, and how many argued against it.
CloudflareFirst choices, of twelve modelsFastly
Direct1101 against Fastly
Paraphrase1101 against Fastly
Comparative90
Budget-constrained1102 against Fastly
Scale-constrained41
Negative006 against Cloudflare · 5 against Fastly
Bars are first choices, 0 to 12 each sideModels that argued againstA model can name both, so the two sides of a row do not sum to twelve.
The direct prompt
The plain question, one answer per model, grouped by where Cloudflare and Fastly stood in it.
Cloudflare first, Fastly an alternative
11 of 12 modelsFastly was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Claude Haiku 4.5Cloudflare alternatives: Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, Fastly
GPT-5.4 miniCloudflare alternatives: Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, Fastly
Gemini 3.5 FlashCloudflare alternatives: Amazon CloudFront, CDN77, Fastly
Perplexity SonarCloudflare alternatives: Akamai, Amazon CloudFront, CDN77, Fastly
Grok 4.1 FastCloudflare alternatives: Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.net, CDN77, Fastly
Mistral SmallCloudflare alternatives: Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.net, CDN77
DeepSeek V4 FlashCloudflare alternatives: Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.net, Fastly
Qwen 3.7 FlashCloudflare alternatives: Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.net, CDN77
Kimi K2Bunny.net, Cloudflare alternatives: CDN77, Fastly
GLM 4.7 FlashXCloudflare alternatives: Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.net, CDN77
MiniMax M2.5Cloudflare alternatives: Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.net, CDN77, Fastly
Neither was named
1 of 12 modelsThe answer made no first choice from these two in this category.Llama 4 Maverickno first choice
Bold names in an answer are the products the judge labeled a first choice; a model naming several gives each of them that label. The full answer text for every row is in the record.
By buyer segment
The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment and they are never added together. The figures above are the mid-market standing, which is the one the category orders by.
Small business
Cloudflare leads by eighty-eight points.
Cloudflare90%#1 of 6Fastly2%#3 of 6Mid-marketThe figures above
Cloudflare leads by seventy-eight points.
Cloudflare80%#1 of 8Fastly2%#3 of 8Enterprise
Cloudflare leads by fifty-three points.
Cloudflare53%#1 of 7Fastly0%#5 of 7What the models said about Cloudflare
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Five of six in this category shown.
“Cloudflare's CDN, as it may slow down your website, and pointing your DNS to Cloudflare can make timely recovery unlikely in case of an outage.” Llama 4 Maverick · negative prompt · hard negative
“Providers to be cautious about: Cloudflare, Akamai, Fastly, Amazon CloudFront ... frequently criticized by developers for its aggressive approach to bot detection” Qwen 3.7 Flash · negative prompt · soft negative
“All major CDNs studied (including Cloudflare, Microsoft Azure, Amazon, and Fastly) have been found to have back-end TLS connections vulnerable to security issues” Claude Haiku 4.5 · negative prompt · soft negative
“Cloudflare remains the most popular CDN choice in 2026, offering an exceptional combination of performance, security, and accessibility with its generous free tier.” Claude Haiku 4.5 · comparative prompt · first choice
“### 1. The All-Rounder: Cloudflare ... Choose Cloudflare if you need to consolidate vendors (DNS + Security + CDN) and your IT team is relatively small.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · direct prompt · first choice
What the models said about Fastly
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Five of six in this category shown.
“All major CDNs studied (including Cloudflare, Microsoft Azure, Amazon, and Fastly) have been found to have back-end TLS connections vulnerable” Claude Haiku 4.5 · negative prompt · soft negative
“Fewer PoPs (≈76 globally) and higher per‑GB pricing than Cloudflare. Simpler B2B setups often don't need this level of control.” GLM 4.7 FlashX · paraphrase prompt · soft negative
“While Fastly is highly regarded for its performance and developer experience, it has suffered from catastrophic global outages.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · negative prompt · soft negative
“The Modern Specialists (Fastly, Cloudflare Enterprise): Built for ease of use, developer experience, and lower risk of human error.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · scale prompt · first choice
“The Best for Complex/Dynamic Engineering: Fastly. Known for unparalleled flexibility, instant cache purging” Gemini 3.5 Flash · scale prompt · alternative
Comparisons are drawn for the top three products in each category. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.