Fastly vs Kentik comparison

Fastly and Kentik are both solutions in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category. Fastly is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.3, while Kentik is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.8. Fastly holds a 3.7% mindshare in DDOS, compared to Kentik’s 1.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Fastly users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Kentik users who would recommend it.

Fastly

Read 11 Fastly reviews

4,660 Views
2,144 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Kentik

Read 22 Kentik reviews

7,438 Views
744 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Fastly

Kentik

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Fastly and Kentik are two prominent competitors in the network management and optimization industry. Fastly often holds an advantage due to its exceptional performance delivery capabilities, while Kentik distinguishes itself with its comprehensive analytics, making it ideal for in-depth network analysis.

Features: Fastly provides high-speed content delivery, powerful edge computing, and efficient caching, which are essential for reducing latency and enhancing user experience. Kentik, on the other hand, offers robust network visibility, real-time data analytics, and scalability, providing heightened network intelligence and advanced traffic insight tools that are crucial for complex analyses.

Room for Improvement: Fastly could enhance its zero-trust security solutions and broaden its network security features. Improving interface intuitiveness for less technical users and enhancing analytics capabilities would also be beneficial. Kentik could work on a more proactive approach to network performance issues, improve anomaly detection in real-time network problems, and make deeper integrations with third-party network management systems to enhance solution scalability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Fastly is known for a streamlined deployment process and easily accessible customer service, which improves the overall user experience. Kentik equally supports efficient deployment but excels with personalized customer support and comprehensive guidance, particularly in handling complex network scenarios.

Pricing and ROI: Fastly generally offers lower setup costs with a rapid ROI, favorable for organizations prioritizing content delivery network benefits. Kentik may require a higher initial investment, yet it compensates with a significant long-term ROI due to its extensive analytics capabilities, providing valuable insights that justify the expense for many enterprises.

To learn more, read our detailed Fastly vs. Kentik Report (Updated: August 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Fastly vs. Kentik

August 2026

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

ROI

Sentiment score

6.0

Fastly boosts return on investment with improved performance, reduced latency, and cuts infrastructure costs by 40-60%.

Sentiment score

5.2

Kentik users benefit from reduced costs, enhanced security, and efficiency, simplifying renewal decisions due to significant perceived value.

Realizing a 30 to 50% reduction in latency and page load time, ensuring users experience a seamless workflow.

Pranay Jain

Senior software engineer at Simplifyvms

I have seen a return on investment, particularly in time savings, especially regarding the changes.

reviewer2858520

Cloud Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Fastly report

If we had, for example, a contracted capacity from Vivo of 50 GB and we were using 40, with Kentik we reduced this usage from 40 to 20.

Gcecilio

Network Engineer at a media company with 51-200 employees

In production environments, especially for service providers on IP networks and data centers, Kentik helps in reducing the time to identify and resolve issues.

reviewer2695314

BDM at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees

I believe the return on investment has been mainly time savings in performing troubleshooting.

Dmartins Martins

Network Analyst at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Kentik report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.3

Fastly's customer care is efficient with multi-channel support, but has inconsistencies in response times and transparency across time zones.

Sentiment score

6.6

Kentik's customer service is praised for proactive support, quick responses, strong communication, and effective issue identification and resolution.

demonstrating the team's technical expertise in CDN and Edge architecture

Pranay Jain

Senior software engineer at Simplifyvms

We have SLAs defined because we opted for enterprise support pricing.

reviewer2161107

Staff Engineer at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees

We are not getting quick responses from Fastly technical support engineers.

Patel Parth

Technical support engineer at Adobe

For more quotes and insights, download the Fastly report

I have mostly used forums for any support needed because the setup is straightforward and the documentation is quite good.

reviewer2695314

BDM at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees

They have monthly calls and discuss the product roadmap with us to determine what is needed.

Shubham-Saxena

Network Engineer III at Fortanix

For more quotes and insights, download the Kentik report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

6.4

Fastly is praised for scalability, ease of growth support, cloud flexibility, excellent support, and successful global integrations.

Sentiment score

6.6

Kentik is highly scalable, effectively manages diverse network sizes, and simplifies scaling with Kubernetes integration, despite credit dependencies.

Seamlessly handling massive traffic without requiring backend changes due to its globally distributed Edge network and stateless API-driven design.

Pranay Jain

Senior software engineer at Simplifyvms

For more quotes and insights, download the Fastly report

Kentik's integration with Kubernetes makes scaling easier.

reviewer2695314

BDM at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees

Kentik's scalability is effective; the platform can handle these large volumes.

Dmartins Martins

Network Analyst at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees

Kentik's scalability depends on how it is contracted.

Gcecilio

Network Engineer at a media company with 51-200 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Kentik report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.3

Fastly is stable and reliable with high uptime, no technical issues, and strong performance in enterprise applications.

Sentiment score

8.1

Kentik users enjoy stable performance and reliability, with quick resolutions to occasional minor outages and bugs.

Highly reliable for enterprise-scale applications with high uptime guarantees.

Pranay Jain

Senior software engineer at Simplifyvms

For more quotes and insights, download the Fastly report

In production, however, dimensioning of the underlying platforms is something to be mindful of.

reviewer2695314

BDM at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees

Based on stability, I would give Kentik a nine.

Shubham-Saxena

Network Engineer III at Fortanix

I can say it is so great for us because if we configure it with Flowspec, the orchestration that we use, which is Kentik, makes the decision and automatically forwards the traffic to another position that we have in our network, or outgoing that we use.

Daniel A Júnior

Telecomm Analyst at a tech company with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Kentik report

Room For Improvement

Fastly requires improvements in China presence, configuration complexity, pricing, customer support, security features, documentation, and bot detection.

Kentik users request better AI reliability, intuitive alerts, improved UX, simplified API, report customization, cost reduction, and detailed documentation.

I chose 8 out of 10 because it has excellent performance and low latency delivery, making it suitable for larger applications, with strong Edge Caching and instant purging capabilities.

Pranay Jain

Senior software engineer at Simplifyvms

Fastly could improve by improving the documentation and having some code examples.

reviewer2858520

Cloud Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Fastly should provide features similar to Cloudflare regarding a block list.

Patel Parth

Technical support engineer at Adobe

For more quotes and insights, download the Fastly report

More work is required to integrate AI for troubleshooting, simplifying root cause analysis, and providing suggested solutions for network issues.

reviewer2695314

BDM at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees

It needed to be a bit easier for new users and have slightly more customized reports.

Dmartins Martins

Network Analyst at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees

Currently, the way I'm configuring it uses reactive alerts, which means alerts are triggered when an issue occurs. I would prefer more proactive alerts in the future.

Theeni Rajendran

Epicor Engineer at Sunway Group

For more quotes and insights, download the Kentik report

Setup Cost

Fastly is competitively priced with usage-based costs and customizable options, but some find it expensive with a learning curve.

Kentik offers competitive pricing with flexible contracts, though costs may vary by enterprise size and usage, requiring substantial budgets.

It operates on a pay-as-you-go structure, but costs scale with traffic, requiring monitoring to avoid unexpected spikes based on data transfers and the number of requests handled.

Pranay Jain

Senior software engineer at Simplifyvms

In terms of price, I find it good.

reviewer2858520

Cloud Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Fastly report

The pricing is good and aligns with the market target.

ADRIANA SALDARRIAGA TOBON

Sales Manager at IFX NEtworks

Kentik’s pricing is competitive in the marketplace.

reviewer2695314

BDM at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees

Later, the prices are very high to maintain all the functionality blocks.

Gcecilio

Network Engineer at a media company with 51-200 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Kentik report

Valuable Features

Fastly CDNs integrate with Signal Sciences WAF for efficient content delivery, enhancing performance with global edge locations and code management.

Kentik offers comprehensive network monitoring, real-time analytics, security insights, customizable dashboards, and automation for efficient network management.

The best feature that Fastly offers is the Edge location, which reduces latency, making our applications work smoother because we do not have to constantly call the backend.

Pranay Jain

Senior software engineer at Simplifyvms

Fastly has a wide number of configuration features that can be performed, and I emphasize that they can be done from code, which makes it much more traceable.

reviewer2858520

Cloud Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

In this project, it is working as a reverse proxy for CDN and WAF, web application firewall, additionally image optimization.

Patel Parth

Technical support engineer at Adobe

For more quotes and insights, download the Fastly report

Gcecilio

Network Engineer at a media company with 51-200 employees

This allows for better understanding of whether there is a critical ongoing case related to incoming traffic, such as a DDoS event, which is crucial for a service provider dealing with numerous customers.

Leonardo Miquelini

Network Engineer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees

Kentik has positively impacted our organization because when something happens, we use Kentik to analyze the problem and it brings us a faster solution to the problem, and the troubleshooting is clearer.

Daniel A Júnior

Telecomm Analyst at a tech company with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Kentik report

Categories and Ranking

Fastly

Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

11th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

CDN (7th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (24th)

Kentik

Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

7th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (12th)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Fastly is 3.7%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kentik is 1.3%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Kentik	1.3%
Fastly	3.7%
Other	95.0%

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

Featured Reviews

Pranay Jain

Senior software engineer at Simplifyvms

Edge caching has transformed response times and delivers faster candidate data globally

Fastly can be improved in certain areas such as VCL, which is powerful but has a steep learning curve for normal users. A more user-friendly, UI-based configuration could simplify the experience, alongside better templates for common use cases and dashboard improvements, as the current dashboard feels complex for beginners, and pricing can be hard to predict for smaller companies. I chose 8 out of 10 because it has excellent performance and low latency delivery, making it suitable for larger applications, with strong Edge Caching and instant purging capabilities. However, VCL complexity and pricing predictability, especially for smaller companies, along with a user-friendly dashboard are areas impacting my score.

Read full review

Gcecilio

Network Engineer at a media company with 51-200 employees

Traffic insights have reduced transit costs and support secure, direct connections with providers

The best features that Kentik offers are the ability to identify traffic end-to-end and to know which transit is used, if it goes through any other transit, to see the entire flow, from the subscriber to the content provider and vice versa, from the content provider to the subscriber.I can also determine whether it is symmetric or asymmetric traffic, and if it goes through any provider that has some kind of bottleneck. That is very important. Regarding the security part, which is also possible to handle through Kentik, you can configure it in a way that makes the network more secure and reduces the amount of dirty traffic or attacks received. Kentik has had a high positive impact on my organization. Besides the cost reduction, it has been possible to perform troubleshooting more effectively, and also regarding DDoS-related attacks. In addition to cost reduction, we had a more reliable connection. Since the moment we identified that it was possible to have a direct connection with content providers like CDN77, Cloudflare, and Akamai, we established a direct connection there through a PNI with these content providers, making the network less dependent on an IP transit provider.

Read full review

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Comms Service Provider

13%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Outsourcing Company

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

15%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Construction Company

Media Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Large Enterprise	7

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	10

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fastly?

In terms of price, I find it good, and as I mentioned, the implementation cost had some difficulty at the beginning due to the learning curve.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Fastly?

I think Fastly could improve by improving the documentation and having some code examples so that it is easier for developers, since at the beginning it becomes a bit complicated.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Fastly?

My primary use case for Fastly is using it as a CDN to speed up my customers' access to the applications. A specific example of how Fastly has helped improve my customers' access to the application...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kentik?

My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing has been limited because I was not responsible for that in my company, but I have spoken with my boss, and he reported that the licensing mode...

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What needs improvement with Kentik?

I do not currently use Kentik's anomaly detection. I had communication with Kentik's technical support through a WhatsApp group. When I faced any issues or there were problems with my Kentik collec...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Kentik?

I'm using Kentik for my own internal use. My primary use case is to monitor our equipment and to get a more detailed view of where our inbound and outbound traffic is going.

See all answers

Comparisons

Cloudflare vs Fastly

Compared 19% of the time

Akamai vs Fastly

Compared 16% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Fastly

Compared 10% of the time

Uplynk vs Fastly

Compared 5% of the time

CDN77 vs Fastly

Compared 4% of the time

More Fastly Competitors

DX Spectrum vs Kentik

Compared 5% of the time

LogicMonitor vs Kentik

Compared 5% of the time

SolarWinds NPM vs Kentik

Compared 5% of the time

Auvik Network Management (ANM) vs Kentik

Compared 5% of the time

vRealize Network Insight vs Kentik

Compared 5% of the time

More Kentik Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fastly

August 2026

Download Fastly product report

Buyer's Guide

Kentik

August 2026

Download Kentik product report

Overview

Fastly is a leading provider of content delivery network services that enhances website performance through efficient caching and real-time architecture capabilities.

Fastly integrates CDN technology with advanced web application firewall for comprehensive security. Its global infrastructure supports performance enhancement, rapid deployment, and rollback capabilities. Utilizing the VCL language allows custom caching solutions. Compute@Edge provides extensive architectural flexibility, aiding in HTML manipulation and script execution. Users benefit from its stability and reliability features for seamless network protection, log management, image optimization, and A/B testing. Challenges include limited support in mainland China, inadequate WebSocket protocol implementation, and complex pricing structures.

What are the key features of Fastly?

CDN Integration: Delivers content quickly across global Points of Presence.
Signal Sciences’ WAF: Manages security threats effectively.
VCL Language: Offers customizable caching solutions.
Compute@Edge: Enables flexible architecture for HTML manipulation.
Image Optimization: Enhances performance with dynamic image delivery.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Performance Enhancement: Boosts website speed and response time.
Rapid Deployment: Allows for swift implementation and rollback.
Real-Time Visibility: Provides insights into cached content management.
Security and Stability: Ensures reliability against DDoS attacks and other threats.
Flexibility: Offers diverse network protection and infrastructure capabilities.

Fastly is widely implemented in industries needing robust content delivery and security capabilities. Companies use it as a reverse proxy for media delivery, ensuring availability and optimized performance. Its rapid deployment and rollback features are particularly beneficial in technology sectors requiring agile responses to demand shifts.

Fastly

Kentik provides real-time visibility into network infrastructure, focusing on monitoring, data visualization, and flow analysis to manage traffic patterns efficiently.

With robust analytics capabilities, Kentik offers insights into BGP peering status, aids in DDoS detection, and allows for detailed telemetry through its intuitive interface. The platform's SaaS nature simplifies operations by eliminating server maintenance concerns. Multi-vendor support and synthetic testing enhance network security and performance by simulating customer scenarios, while its API offers automation for querying and reporting tasks.

What are the key features of Kentik?

Real-Time Visibility: Monitors network infrastructure effectively.
Data Visualization: Offers powerful tools for viewing complex data.
Flow Analysis: Analyzes traffic flow for optimal management.
BGP Peering Insights: Provides in-depth peering status checks.
DDoS Alerting: Notifies about potential DDoS threats.
Data Explorer: Aids in understanding traffic patterns.
Synthetic Testing: Simulates scenarios to enhance security and performance.

What benefits can be found in user reviews?

Automation: Users value the flexibility of its API for automating tasks.
Ease of Use: SaaS model streamlines user engagement, eliminating server maintenance.
Flexibility: Report customization and query settings are highly appreciated.
Enhanced Observability: Telemetry and multi-vendor support increase oversight.

Industries implement Kentik for network monitoring, traffic management, and flow data analysis across both on-prem and cloud setups. It proves valuable for detecting DDoS events, managing peering relationships, and optimizing costs, besides managing CDN configurations and performing synthetic tests in diverse environments.

Kentik

Sample Customers

Twitter, Airbnb, Alaska Airlines, Pinterest, Vimeo, The Guardian, The New York Times, Ticketmaster, The Drupal Association, Opera, about.com, imgur, Etsy, Foursquare, GitHub, New Relic, shopify, Shazam, Firebase

Pandora, Yelp, Neustar, Box, University of Washington, Zoom, Tata, and Cogent.

Buyer's Guide

Fastly vs. Kentik

August 2026

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