Fastly is an edge cloud platform that helps businesses deliver content and applications faster and more securely. Founded in 2011, the company built its network from the ground up using Varnish-based caching technology, giving developers fine-grained control over how content gets cached and delivered.
Fastly’s edge network spans dozens of points of presence worldwide, with servers strategically placed close to end users. The platform handles real-time content delivery, DDoS protection, web application firewalls, and edge computing through its Compute@Edge product built on WebAssembly.
Major customers include the New York Times, GitHub, Stripe, and Pinterest. Fastly went public on the NYSE in 2019. What sets the company apart is its real-time purging capability — changes propagate across the entire network in about 150 milliseconds, making it a favorite for publishers and e-commerce sites that need instant cache invalidation.
The company also acquired Signal Sciences in 2020 to strengthen its security offerings, adding a next-gen WAF that works across any environment.
