Softwr

Cloud · head to head

Fastly vs Hookdeck

Fastly logo

Fastly

Cloud

High performance edge computing platform

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite
Hookdeck logo

Hookdeck

Developer Tools

Event gateway that receives, queues, retries and replays inbound webhooks

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Fastly bandwidth is priced per region, and delivery to India, Africa and South Korea is $0.28 per GB against $0.12 in North America and Europe; Hookdeck pricing meters delivered events, so fan-out multiplies the bill: one inbound event routed to four services counts as four deliveries.
  • They diverge on capability: Fastly covers Edge Compute, Hookdeck covers Ingest and persist.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Fastly and Hookdeck actually diverge.

Attributes where Fastly and Hookdeck differ
AttributeFastlyHookdeck
Pricing modelusage-basedPer month by delivered event count
PlatformsWeb, ApiWeb, Linux, macOS, Windows
CategoryCloudDeveloper Tools
Founded2011Unknown

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Fastly

  • Edge Compute
  • CDN
  • DDoS Protection
  • Real-time Analytics
  • Image Optimization
  • Video Streaming
  • API
  • Instant Purge

Only in Hookdeck

  • Ingest and persist
  • Automatic retries
  • Filters and fan-out
  • Transformations
  • Local development CLI
  • Rate limiting

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Fastly

  • Serving static and dynamic content through a global CDNnot Hookdeck
  • Running edge logic and caching in front of an origin applicationnot Hookdeck

Hookdeck

  • A payments integration where losing a Stripe event during a deploy causes an order to go unfulfillednot Fastly
  • Fanning one provider webhook out to several internal services without each subscribing separatelynot Fastly
  • Debugging a partner integration by replaying the exact failing payload after shipping a fixnot Fastly
  • Receiving production-shaped webhooks on a developer laptop without running a public tunnelnot Fastly

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Fastly

  • Bandwidth is priced per region, and delivery to India, Africa and South Korea is $0.28 per GB against $0.12 in North America and Europe
  • The same traffic therefore costs more than twice as much depending on where the audience is, which is invisible until the bill arrives
  • The free allowance is 100 GB of bandwidth and 1M requests a month
  • Requests are billed separately from bandwidth, at $0.01 per 10,000 above the first million
  • High volume rates past 50 TB are not published and require contacting sales

Hookdeck

  • Pricing meters delivered events, so fan-out multiplies the bill: one inbound event routed to four services counts as four deliveries.
  • Free-tier retention is three days, which is shorter than the time it typically takes to notice a failing integration, so the payloads needed for a replay are often already gone.
  • It becomes a single point of failure in front of every third-party integration, and an outage there means every provider webhook queues or fails at once.
  • The transformation layer runs JavaScript in a constrained environment, so anything that needs a database lookup or an external call has to happen downstream instead.
  • For a team already running Kafka or SQS the value is mostly the console and the replay UI, which is a hard cost to justify against infrastructure they already operate.

Pricing, plan by plan

Fastly

Free
  • Free TrialFree
    • CDN
    • DDoS protection
    • Real-time analytics
  • Pay-As-You-GoFree
    • Usage-based pricing
    • Advanced features
    • Priority support

Hookdeck

Free
  • DeveloperFree
    • Up to ten thousand events per month
    • Three-day retention
    • One user
  • Team$39/month
    • Ten thousand events included
    • Unlimited users
    • Pay as you go metering above the included events
  • Growth$499/month
    • Ten thousand events included plus metered usage
    • Thirty-day retention
    • Uptime and latency SLAs
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Negotiated event volume
    • Custom retention
    • Dedicated support

Which should you pick?

Choose Fastly if

  • You need edge compute.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Api.
  • You also want cdn.
Fastly review

Choose Hookdeck if

  • You need ingest and persist.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Linux, macOS, Windows.
  • You also want automatic retries.
Hookdeck review

Questions people ask

Is Fastly or Hookdeck better?
Neither clearly leads. Fastly starts at Free and Hookdeck at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Fastly or Hookdeck?
Fastly starts at Free and Hookdeck at Free.
Does Fastly or Hookdeck run on more platforms?
Fastly runs on Web, Api. Hookdeck runs on Web, Linux, macOS, Windows.
Can I use Fastly for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Fastly best used for?
Fastly is most often used for serving static and dynamic content through a global cdn, running edge logic and caching in front of an origin application. Of those, serving static and dynamic content through a global cdn and running edge logic and caching in front of an origin application are not what Hookdeck is typically brought in for.
What can Fastly do that Hookdeck cannot?
Fastly covers Edge Compute, CDN, DDoS Protection, Real-time Analytics. Hookdeck covers Ingest and persist, Automatic retries, Filters and fan-out, Transformations.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Fastly: Does Fastly charge based on usage or a flat monthly fee?

Fastly operates on a usage-based model with volume discounts. They offer a free tier with 100 GB bandwidth and 1M requests for experimentation, then customers pay per unit consumed with tiered discounts as consumption increases.

Source
Hookdeck: Is there a free plan?

Yes, ten thousand events a month with three-day retention and one user.

Fastly: What are Fastly's main service packages and their costs?

Fastly offers Network Services Packages ($1,500-$6,000/month baseline), Security Packages (custom pricing), Compute Packages ($500/month entry level), and Observability Packages ($1,500/month entry level). Enterprise solutions include custom quotes for high-volume deployments.

Source
Hookdeck: How is usage counted?

By delivered events, so a single inbound webhook fanned out to three destinations counts as three.

Fastly: Can I start using Fastly for free?

Yes, Fastly offers a free tier with generous allowances for experimentation including 100 GB bandwidth and 1M requests. You can start building free and only pay when you use additional resources.

Source
Hookdeck: Can I replay a failed webhook?

Yes, individually or in bulk from the console, with the original payload.

Fastly: Are there surprise overage charges with Fastly?

Fastly advertises predictable pricing with no surprise overages. The pricing structure is designed to be transparent as consumption grows.

Source
Hookdeck: Does it work for outbound webhooks too?

Yes, the same queueing, retry and observability applies to webhooks you send.

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