# Fastly: how AI models rank it, September 2026

IT AI Recommendation Index, September 2026 Edition. Named in 73 judge labels across 3 categories by 12 of 12 models. Page: https://it-ai-index.com/vendors/fastly/

## Standing by category

| Category | Share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web application firewalls | 2% | 4 | 10% | 10 |
| Content delivery networks | 2% | 3 | 18% | 49 |
| DDoS protection | 0% | 9 | 0% | 14 |

## What the models said for it

- "Fastly Next-Gen WAF (formerly Signal Sciences): Highly regarded for its "smart decision" engine, allowing teams to run it in blocking mode on Day 1 with almost zero false positives." (Gemini 3.5 Flash, WAF)
- "The Modern Specialists (Fastly, Cloudflare Enterprise): Built for ease of use, developer experience, and lower risk of human error." (Qwen 3.7 Flash, CDN)
- "The Best for Complex/Dynamic Engineering: Fastly. Known for unparalleled flexibility, instant cache purging" (Gemini 3.5 Flash, CDN)
- "Common vendors to evaluate for a company of your size: Cloudflare ..., Fastly, Akamai, Imperva, and Radware." (Gemini 3.5 Flash, DDoS)

## And against it

- "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, CDN)
- "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, CDN)
- "While Fastly is highly regarded for its performance and developer experience, it has suffered from catastrophic global outages." (Qwen 3.7 Flash, CDN)
- "Higher cost and operational complexity than Cloudflare/Bunny; Less "plug\u2011and\u2011play" for mid\u2011market teams" (GLM 4.7 FlashX, CDN)

## Record

- Method: https://it-ai-index.com/methodology/
- Raw judge labels and full responses: https://it-ai-index.com/data/
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as IT AI Recommendation Index, September 2026 Edition, it-ai-index.com.