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Cloud · head to head

Fastly vs Longhorn

Fastly logo

Fastly

Cloud

High performance edge computing platform

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Longhorn logo

Longhorn

Cloud

Open source distributed block storage for Kubernetes, incubating at the CNCF

From
Free
Rated
-
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; Longhorn there is no vendor and no SLA, so a production incident at three in the morning is your own problem unless you buy SUSE Rancher Prime support separately.
  • They diverge on capability: Fastly covers Edge Compute, Longhorn covers Per-volume controllers.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Fastly and Longhorn actually diverge.

Attributes where Fastly and Longhorn differ
AttributeFastlyLonghorn
Pricing modelusage-basedOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsWeb, ApiLinux, Kubernetes
Founded2011Unknown

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

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 Longhorn

  • Per-volume controllers
  • Synchronous replication
  • Snapshots and backups
  • Volume expansion
  • Disaster recovery volumes
  • Web interface

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 Longhorn
  • Running edge logic and caching in front of an origin applicationnot Longhorn

Longhorn

  • An on-premises Kubernetes cluster with local disks and no SAN that needs replicated persistent volumesnot Fastly
  • Edge sites where shipping a storage array is impractical and three nodes is the whole clusternot Fastly
  • A K3s deployment where the storage layer must be light enough to run alongside the workloadsnot Fastly
  • A team that wants snapshots and S3 backups of persistent volumes without paying per-node storage licencesnot 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

Longhorn

  • There is no vendor and no SLA, so a production incident at three in the morning is your own problem unless you buy SUSE Rancher Prime support separately.
  • Synchronous replication across nodes means write latency depends on the slowest replica and the network between nodes, which makes it a poor fit for latency-sensitive databases.
  • Every replica is a full copy, so three-way replication consumes three times the raw capacity, unlike erasure-coded systems that are far more space efficient.
  • It is designed for block storage on modest clusters and does not scale to the node counts or throughput that Ceph or a commercial array handles, so growth eventually forces a migration.
  • Recovery from certain degraded states, such as a volume stuck detaching or replicas failing to rebuild, requires manual intervention and knowledge of Longhorn internals that is not widely held.

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

Longhorn

Free
  • LonghornFree
    • Apache 2.0 licensed, no licence fee
    • Community support via GitHub and Slack only
    • No vendor SLA or escalation path

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 Longhorn if

  • You need per-volume controllers.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Kubernetes.
  • You also want synchronous replication.
Longhorn review

Questions people ask

Is Fastly or Longhorn better?
Neither clearly leads. Fastly starts at Free and Longhorn at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Fastly or Longhorn?
Fastly starts at Free and Longhorn at Free.
Does Fastly or Longhorn run on more platforms?
Fastly runs on Web, Api. Longhorn runs on Linux, Kubernetes.
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 Longhorn is typically brought in for.
What can Fastly do that Longhorn cannot?
Fastly covers Edge Compute, CDN, DDoS Protection, Real-time Analytics. Longhorn covers Per-volume controllers, Synchronous replication, Snapshots and backups, Volume expansion.

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
Longhorn: Who do we call when it breaks?

Nobody, unless you buy SUSE Rancher Prime, which includes commercial support for Longhorn. This is the decisive question for production use.

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
Longhorn: How much capacity does replication cost?

Full copies, so three replicas means three times the raw capacity. Budget accordingly rather than assuming erasure coding efficiency.

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
Longhorn: Is it suitable for production databases?

For modest workloads yes, but synchronous replication adds write latency and high-transaction databases usually want something faster.

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
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