# Cloudflare vs Fastly: which do AI models recommend for CDN, October 2026

IT AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition, Content delivery networks. Nine of fourteen models named Cloudflare first on the direct prompt; zero named Fastly. Page: https://it-ai-index.com/network/content-delivery-networks/cloudflare-vs-fastly/

| | First-choice share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels | Models naming it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare | 68% | #1 of 8 | 8% | 72 | 14 of 14 |
| Fastly | 4% | #5 of 8 | 20% | 61 | 14 of 14 |

## The direct prompt, model by model

- GPT-5.4 mini: cloudflare first (first choices: Cloudflare) (alternatives: Amazon CloudFront, Fastly)
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: cloudflare first (first choices: Cloudflare) (alternatives: Bunny.net, Fastly)
- Perplexity Sonar: cloudflare first (first choices: Cloudflare) (alternatives: Akamai, Amazon CloudFront)
- Grok 4.20: cloudflare first (first choices: Cloudflare) (alternatives: Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.net, KeyCDN)
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: cloudflare first (first choices: Cloudflare) (alternatives: Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.net)
- Kimi K2: cloudflare first (first choices: Cloudflare) (alternatives: Bunny.net, Fastly, KeyCDN)
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: cloudflare first (first choices: Cloudflare) (alternatives: Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.net, Fastly)
- GPT-6 Luna: cloudflare first (first choices: Cloudflare) (alternatives: Amazon CloudFront, Fastly)
- Muse Glimmer 30B: cloudflare first (first choices: Cloudflare) (alternatives: Amazon CloudFront, Bunny.net, Fastly, KeyCDN)
- Claude Haiku 4.5: neither first, one named (first choices: Amazon CloudFront, CDN77) (alternatives: Azure CDN, Cloudflare, Gcore)
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: neither first, one named (first choices: KeyCDN) (alternatives: BlazingCDN, Bunny.net, Cloudflare)
- MiniMax M2.5: neither first, one named (first choices: Bunny.net, KeyCDN) (alternatives: Amazon CloudFront, Cloudflare)
- Mistral Small: neither named (first choices: Bunny.net, KeyCDN)
- Llama 4 Maverick: neither named (first choices: Bunny.net, KeyCDN) (alternatives: BlazingCDN)

## What the models said about Cloudflare

- "Major outages (2024‑2025)... When to be cautious - If your application is mission‑critical, consider a multi‑CDN or fail‑over strategy." (GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt, soft negative)
- "Cloudflare is a strong all-around CDN and security platform for organizations that want acceleration, DNS, DDoS mitigation, WAF, Zero Trust services, and edge computing features in one ecosystem" (Claude Haiku 4.5, comparative prompt, first choice)
- "Cloudflare: *The "All-in-One" Choice.* Excellent if you want a massive feature set ... Great developer experience, but enterprise pricing negotiations can sometimes feel rigid." (Gemini 3.5 Flash, scale prompt, first choice)
- "the best default choice is usually Cloudflare because it combines broad CDN performance, strong built-in security, and a relatively accessible business tier" (Perplexity Sonar, direct prompt, first choice)

## What the models said about Fastly

- "Avoid enterprise ones (Akamai, Fastly) as they're pricier." (Grok 4.20, budget prompt, hard negative)
- "Fastly’s VCL‑based cache logic is powerful but can be brittle; mis‑configuration can lead to cache‑invalidation issues or performance regressions." (GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt, soft negative)
- "good option for development-heavy teams ... but it is more specialized than Cloudflare for a broad mid-market B2B use case" (Perplexity Sonar, direct prompt, soft negative)
- "Fastly: *The "Developer-First" Choice.* Best-in-class real-time purging ... Ideal if your engineering team wants complete programmatic control." (Gemini 3.5 Flash, scale prompt, first choice)
- "I'd recommend evaluating Cloudflare, Fastly, Akamai, and CloudFront first" (GLM 4.7 FlashX, scale prompt, first choice)
- "Fastly if your site or app needs very fast purging, high configurability, real-time control, or developer-heavy workflows" (GPT-5.4 mini, paraphrase prompt, alternative)

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category. Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category. Published under CC BY 4.0; the output is the models' output, and nothing here is a recommendation by the index.