Fastly vs Cloudinary Pricing (2026)
How do these two stack up on price? Here's what each one costs, what you get, and where the value sits.
| Fastly | Cloudinary | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | Custom | $99/mo |
| Number of plans | 3 | 4 |
| Free plan | ||
| Free trial | — | — |
| Pricing model | usage-based | hybrid |
Free Tier
- Fast, reliable content delivery network
- TLS
- Image Optimizer
- Domain Research API
- AI Accelerator
- Compute
- Fanout
- Websockets
- DDoS Protection
- Object Storage
- Key Value Store
- Secret Store
Usage-based, volume discounts
- Full Site Delivery
- TLS
- Image Optimizer
- Domain Research API
- AI Accelerator
- Compute
- Fanout
- Websockets
- DDoS Protection
- Object Storage
- Key Value Store
- Secret Store
- Alerts
- Edge Observer
Enterprise solutions
Free
- Upload widget, API, and search
- Remote fetch, auto-backup, and revision tracking
- Image and video transformations
- Video transcoding and adaptive streaming
- High performance delivery through a CDN
- Support — forums, tickets, and email
- Access to free add-ons
- Access to MCP servers
Plus
Popular- Backup to your own S3 bucket
- Auto-tagging based search
- Access to free and paid add-ons
- Expedited support
- Allowlist/Blocklist asset access
- Role-based multi-user administration
Advanced
- Custom domain (CNAME) support
- Optional HTTPS SSL Certificate
- Authentication Options
Enterprise
- Backup to your own S3 bucket
- Auto-tagging based search
- Access to free and paid add-ons
- Expedited support
- Allowlist/Blocklist asset access
- Video Bandwidth Boost 2:1
- Role-based multi-user administration
Fastly vs Cloudinary FAQ
- Which one is cheaper?
- One or both use custom pricing, so it depends on your specific needs.
- Can I use either one for free?
- Both offer free plans, so you can try each without paying. Start with whichever fits your workflow better and upgrade when you hit the limits.
- How do they charge?
- Different approach here. Fastly uses usage-based pricing, while Cloudinary goes with hybrid. That changes the math depending on your team size and usage.
- Which one is a better deal?
- Depends on what you need. Fastly: Fastly positions as the premium, developer-first CDN and edge compute platform — they're not trying to win on price against Cloudflare's free tier or commodity CDN players. They're going after engineering-led teams at mid-market and enterprise companies where performance, programmability, and support SLAs matter more than the lowest per-GB rate. Cloudinary: Cloudinary sits at the premium end of the media management space — it's pricier than rolling your own S3-plus-imgix stack, but it's positioning itself as the full-service option that saves engineering time versus piecing together storage, CDN, and transformation tooling yourself. They're chasing teams that'll pay for reliability and breadth of features over raw cost savings.
Still deciding? See the best Fastly alternatives or the best Cloudinary alternatives, ranked with verified pricing.
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