Cloud · head to head
Fastly vs OpenTelemetry
OpenTelemetry
Cloud
Vendor-neutral standard for traces, metrics and logs
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
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; OpenTelemetry genuinely complex to adopt: collectors, pipelines, samplers and exporters are a system to run in their own right
- They diverge on capability: Fastly covers Edge Compute, OpenTelemetry covers Vendor-neutral SDKs.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Fastly and OpenTelemetry actually diverge.
| Attribute | Fastly | OpenTelemetry |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | usage-based | Open source, no licence fee |
| Platforms | Web, Api | Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Docker |
| Founded | 2011 | Unknown |
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 OpenTelemetry
- Vendor-neutral SDKs
- Collector
- Three signals
- Auto-instrumentation
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 OpenTelemetry
- Running edge logic and caching in front of an origin applicationnot OpenTelemetry
OpenTelemetry
- Instrumenting once and keeping the option to change observability vendor laternot Fastly
- Standardising telemetry across services written in different languagesnot Fastly
- Routing and filtering telemetry centrally to control observability spendnot 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
OpenTelemetry
- Genuinely complex to adopt: collectors, pipelines, samplers and exporters are a system to run in their own right
- Language SDKs mature at different rates, so a polyglot estate gets uneven support
- It produces and moves telemetry but does not store or visualise it, so a backend is still required and still billed
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
OpenTelemetry
Free- OpenTelemetryFree
- Full functionality
- No usage limits
- Community 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.
Choose OpenTelemetry if
- You need vendor-neutral sdks.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Docker.
- You also want collector.
Questions people ask
- Is Fastly or OpenTelemetry better?
- Neither clearly leads. Fastly starts at Free and OpenTelemetry at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Fastly or OpenTelemetry?
- Fastly starts at Free and OpenTelemetry at Free.
- Does Fastly or OpenTelemetry run on more platforms?
- Fastly runs on Web, Api. OpenTelemetry runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Docker.
- 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 OpenTelemetry is typically brought in for.
- What can Fastly do that OpenTelemetry cannot?
- Fastly covers Edge Compute, CDN, DDoS Protection, Real-time Analytics. OpenTelemetry covers Vendor-neutral SDKs, Collector, Three signals, Auto-instrumentation.
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.
SourceOpenTelemetry: Is OpenTelemetry free?
Yes, open source under the CNCF. What you pay for is the backend you export to.
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.
SourceOpenTelemetry: Does OpenTelemetry replace Datadog or Grafana?
No. It replaces their proprietary agents and instrumentation libraries. You still need a backend to store and query the data.
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.
SourceOpenTelemetry: Why adopt a vendor-neutral standard?
Because instrumentation is the expensive part. Once code emits OTel, changing observability vendor is a collector config change instead of re-instrumenting every service.
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.
SourceRelated pages
More on OpenTelemetry
Other head to heads
- Fastly vs AWS (Amazon Web Services)
- Fastly vs DigitalOcean
- Fastly vs Grafana Cloud
- Fastly vs Neon
- Fastly vs Akamai
- Fastly vs HAProxy
- Fastly vs Fly.io
- Fastly vs K3s
- Fastly vs Podman
- Fastly vs Vault
- Fastly vs Jaeger
- Fastly vs Heroku
- Fastly vs Beam Cloud
- Fastly vs Caddy
- Fastly vs Cerebrium
- Fastly vs DeepInfra
- Fastly vs Buildah
- Fastly vs Zipkin
- Fastly vs VictoriaMetrics
- Fastly vs OpenEBS
- Fastly vs Northflank
- Fastly vs Oracle Cloud
- Fastly vs Porter
- Fastly vs Serverless Framework
- Fastly vs CapRover
- Fastly vs Coolify
- Fastly vs IBM Cloud
- Fastly vs Koyeb
- Fastly vs Microsoft Azure
- Fastly vs Nitric
- Fastly vs Nomad
- OpenTelemetry vs AWS (Amazon Web Services)
- OpenTelemetry vs DigitalOcean
- OpenTelemetry vs Grafana Cloud
- OpenTelemetry vs Neon
- OpenTelemetry vs Akamai
- OpenTelemetry vs HAProxy
- OpenTelemetry vs Fly.io
- OpenTelemetry vs K3s
- OpenTelemetry vs Podman
- OpenTelemetry vs Vault
- OpenTelemetry vs Jaeger
- OpenTelemetry vs Heroku
- OpenTelemetry vs Beam Cloud
- OpenTelemetry vs Caddy
- OpenTelemetry vs Cerebrium
- OpenTelemetry vs DeepInfra
- OpenTelemetry vs Buildah
- OpenTelemetry vs Zipkin
- OpenTelemetry vs VictoriaMetrics
- OpenTelemetry vs OpenEBS
- OpenTelemetry vs Northflank
- OpenTelemetry vs Oracle Cloud
- OpenTelemetry vs Porter
- OpenTelemetry vs Serverless Framework
- OpenTelemetry vs CapRover
- OpenTelemetry vs Coolify
- OpenTelemetry vs IBM Cloud
- OpenTelemetry vs Koyeb
- OpenTelemetry vs Microsoft Azure
- OpenTelemetry vs Nitric
- OpenTelemetry vs Nomad