Softwr

Cloud · head to head

Fastly vs Verbit

Fastly logo

Fastly

Cloud

High performance edge computing platform

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite
Verbit logo

Verbit

AI

Transcription and captioning combining automatic speech recognition with professional human correction

From
$24/month
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Fastly has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • 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; Verbit only a small self-service tier has a published price; the institutional plans that most education buyers actually need are quoted, so budgeting requires a sales cycle and comparison against competitors requires several.
  • They diverge on capability: Fastly covers Edge Compute, Verbit covers ASR with human correction.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Fastly and Verbit actually diverge.

Attributes where Fastly and Verbit differ
AttributeFastlyVerbit
Starting priceFree$24/month
Pricing modelusage-basedPer month by transcription hours
Free tierYesNo
CategoryCloudAI
Founded2011Unknown

Identical on both: platforms (Web, Api), 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 Verbit

  • ASR with human correction
  • Live realtime captioning
  • Domain-tuned models
  • Translation and subtitling
  • Audio description
  • LMS and video platform integrations
  • Court-admissible transcripts
  • Turnaround tiers

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

Verbit

  • A university that must caption recorded teaching to meet accessibility law and wants machine output for general content with human correction only where a student accommodation appliesnot Fastly
  • A broadcaster needing live realtime captioning to regulatory standard, which the VITAC operation supplies rather than a pure software vendornot Fastly
  • A law firm or court reporting operation needing certified transcripts of depositions with a defensible chain of accuracynot Fastly
  • A market research team transcribing focus groups where speaker separation and verbatim fidelity matter more than turnaround speednot 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

Verbit

  • Only a small self-service tier has a published price; the institutional plans that most education buyers actually need are quoted, so budgeting requires a sales cycle and comparison against competitors requires several.
  • Accuracy claims are benchmarked on clean audio with standard accents, and real lecture theatre recordings with technical vocabulary and non-native speakers fall well short, so the contracted level and the audio assumptions behind it must be written into the agreement.
  • The human correction layer is what delivers the accuracy institutions buy, and it introduces turnaround times measured in hours or days, which does not suit anyone expecting transcripts immediately after a session.
  • Cost scales with hours of content, so an institution that recorded everything during remote teaching and never reduced the volume can find transcription costing more than the lecture capture platform generating the recordings.
  • Verbit has grown by acquisition and consolidated several transcription brands, and customers of acquired services have been migrated onto Verbit contracts and pricing on the acquirer's timetable rather than their own.

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

Verbit

$24/month
  • Standard$24/month
    • From $24 per month
    • 100 hours per month split as 50 live and 50 post-production
    • Self-service sign-up
  • Campus Complete$undefined/year
    • Unlimited hours for an institution
    • Built around media accessibility obligations
    • LMS and lecture capture integrations
  • Legal Capture and Legal Visor$undefined/year
    • Unlimited legal transcription with court-admissible transcripts on request
    • Live AI transcription and case insights
    • Quoted
  • Custom$undefined/year
    • Enterprise deployment across the product suite
    • Negotiated accuracy levels and turnaround
    • Quoted

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 Verbit if

  • You need asr with human correction.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want live realtime captioning.
Verbit review

Questions people ask

Is Fastly or Verbit better?
Neither clearly leads. Fastly starts at Free and Verbit at $24/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Fastly or Verbit?
Fastly has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Fastly and $24/month for Verbit.
Does Fastly or Verbit run on more platforms?
Fastly runs on Web, Api. Verbit runs on Web, API.
Can I use Fastly for free?
Yes. Fastly has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Verbit starts at $24/month.
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 Verbit is typically brought in for.
What can Fastly do that Verbit cannot?
Fastly covers Edge Compute, CDN, DDoS Protection, Real-time Analytics. Verbit covers ASR with human correction, Live realtime captioning, Domain-tuned models, Translation and subtitling.

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
Verbit: Is there published pricing?

Only for the entry Standard tier at around $24 a month for 100 hours split between live and post-production. Campus Complete and the legal and media unlimited plans are quoted.

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
Verbit: What accuracy does Verbit deliver?

Machine-only output is materially less accurate than the corrected tiers. Accuracy is a contracted service level on the human-corrected plans, and it assumes reasonable audio quality. Negotiate the figure and the remedy, not the marketing number.

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
Verbit: What is VITAC?

A large North American broadcast captioning business Verbit acquired in 2021. It is why Verbit can supply live realtime captioning at broadcast standard rather than only post-production transcripts.

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
Verbit: Can I mix machine and human transcription?

Yes, and it is the main reason education buyers choose Verbit: route routine content through machine processing and accommodation-covered content through human correction on the same account.

Share

Related pages

More on Fastly

More on Verbit

Keep looking

Other head to heads