Company snapshot
| Category | 5 Cents CDN | Fastly |
|---|---|---|
| Status | active | active |
| Founded | — | — |
| Headquarters | — | — |
| Website | — | — |
| Docs | — | — |
Overview
5 Cents CDN provides a content delivery network focused on affordability and scalability for video streaming, web acceleration, and cloud storage. It serves enterprises, broadcasters, and OTT providers, with a client base including government agencies and TV channels across North America, Europe, Asia, and other regions. The platform emphasizes low-cost plans starting at $2.5/TB and a global network of over 70 points of presence (PoPs). Features include live streaming, video-on-demand, and multistreaming to social platforms. It supports businesses prioritizing cost-effective content delivery with minimal setup complexity.
Fastly is a global content delivery network (CDN) and edge cloud platform founded in 2011, headquartered in San Francisco, USA. It focuses on delivering fast, secure, and customizable content delivery and edge computing services. Fastly serves a range of enterprise customers, including The New York Times, GitHub, Spotify, and Pinterest, with a developer-centric approach. Its platform emphasizes real-time control, analytics, and edge computing capabilities. Fastly went public in 2019 and remains active, though it has faced challenges with outages and industry slowdowns.
Network & Architecture
5 Cents CDN operates over 70 PoPs globally, with data centers in North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and India. Its infrastructure supports high availability for video streaming and web acceleration, leveraging modern server setups for low-latency delivery. The network offers 2+ Tbps capacity, with strong presence in North America and Europe, though some users report inconsistent speeds in certain global regions. The platform includes SimpleDNS for cost-effective domain management and Traffic Director for multi-CDN traffic steering based on geography or network conditions.
Fastly operates over 60 points of presence (POPs) globally, with a focus on major population centers for low-latency content delivery. Its global anycast network optimizes routing, but its smaller POP count compared to competitors like Akamai or Cloudflare may limit coverage in some regions. Fastly has strong peering agreements, enhancing performance for high-traffic sites. It excels in North America, EMEA, and APAC but has less presence in Africa and LatAm. The platform leverages WebAssembly for edge computing isolation and resiliency.
Feature comparison
| Feature | 5 Cents CDN | Fastly |
|---|---|---|
waf | ✓ | ✓ |
bot_mitigation | ✗ | ✗ |
ddos | ✓ | ✓ |
rate_limit | ✗ | ✗ |
http3_quic | ✗ | ✓ |
tls13 | ✓ | ✓ |
tiered_cache | ✗ | ✗ |
origin_shield | ✗ | ✓ |
instant_purge | ✗ | ✓ |
stale_while_revalidate | ✗ | ✓ |
stale_if_error | ✗ | ✓ |
image_optimization | ✓ | ✓ |
video_vod | ✓ | ✗ |
video_live | ✓ | ✗ |
drm | ✗ | ✗ |
hls_dash_packaging | ✗ | ✗ |
websockets | ✗ | ✓ |
signed_urls | ✗ | ✓ |
edge_compute | ✗ | ✓ |
functions | ✗ | ✓ |
kv_storage | ✓ | ✗ |
api_first | ✓ | ✓ |
realtime_logs | ✓ | ✓ |
log_push | ✗ | ✓ |
terraform | ✗ | ✓ |
Legend: ✓ = Supported, ✗ = Not supported, — = Not listed
Pricing
5 Cents CDN offers pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pricing starting at $2.5/TB for North America and Europe delivery. Plans include Standard ($2.5/TB, 10+ PoPs) and Enterprise ($10/TB, 20+ PoPs) with unlimited zones and streams. A 15-day trial is available with no long-term contracts, though nominal setup fees apply. Custom pricing is offered for high-bandwidth needs (100+ TB/month). Full details at https://www.5centscdn.net/pricing/.
Fastly uses a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) model with pricing based on data transfer ($0.12–$0.19 per GB) and requests ($0.0075 per 10,000). Additional features like WAF or edge computing may incur extra costs. No free tier is offered, and pricing targets enterprise users. Full details are available at https://www.fastly.com/pricing.
Integrations & DevEx
The platform provides an API-first interface for managing CDN services, including stream setup and analytics. It integrates with vMix for live streaming and supports OpenStack Swift and S3 APIs for cloud storage. Realtime logs and analytics are available via the V5 dashboard, offering insights into traffic and performance. No public documentation confirms Terraform or CI/CD pipeline support. The control panel is noted for ease of use but has received feedback for needing a more intuitive interface.
Fastly supports Terraform for infrastructure-as-code, with recent updates like the Terraform Provider 7.1.0 adding domain metadata and IPv6 preferences. It offers SDKs and APIs for custom integrations, CI/CD pipelines, and real-time analytics. Realtime logs and log-push capabilities integrate with monitoring tools like Splunk or Datadog. Migration tools are limited, but the API-first design simplifies configuration for developers.
When it fits
- Small to medium businesses needing affordable CDN services with flexible PAYG plans.
- Broadcasters and OTT providers requiring live streaming and multistreaming to social platforms.
- Enterprises targeting North America and Europe with video-heavy workloads.
- Enterprises needing real-time control and analytics for dynamic content delivery.
- Developers requiring edge computing with Compute@Edge for serverless applications.
- Sites with high-traffic demands in North America, EMEA, or APAC regions.
When it doesn’t
- Organizations needing advanced edge compute or serverless functions, which are not supported.
- Users requiring consistent high-speed delivery in underrepresented regions like parts of APAC or Africa.
- Businesses seeking extensive IaC support (e.g., Terraform) or complex multi-CDN orchestration.
- Small businesses seeking free tiers or simpler, budget-friendly CDN options.
- Users needing extensive POP coverage in Africa or Latin America.
- Applications requiring advanced video streaming features like HLS/DASH packaging or DRM.
History & Notes
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