Rightmove secures 53 million property searches daily with Fastly
Key Results
Secured 53 million daily property searches and one billion monthly user minutes with Fastly’s next-gen security stack.
Maintained seamless performance during unpredictable traffic spikes, from real estate market changes to national events.
Enhanced B2B service reliability and security, ensuring always-on access for estate agents, mortgage lenders, and surveyors.
Future-proofed platform scalability with integrated Bot Protection, Next-Gen WAF, and DDoS mitigation while aligning with Rightmove's engineering-led culture.
The challenge
Rightmove, the UK's number one property marketplace, faces the immense task of handling 53 million property searches every day while uploading 10,000 new properties. With users collectively spending one billion minutes on the website monthly, Andrew Tate, Head of Technology Operations at Rightmove, plays a critical role in ensuring the platform remains fast, secure, and reliable to support this massive engagement. His team ensures product teams can deliver functionality securely and reliably while maintaining website performance. As Rightmove modernizes its platform and transitions to the cloud, the company needed a comprehensive security solution that would match their vision of building a trusted platform for both consumers and B2B clients across the real estate ecosystem.
The solution
Maintaining performance through unpredictable market conditions
Rightmove has faced numerous events that have caused sudden spikes in traffic, such as lockdown-induced market closures and stamp duty holidays. Reflecting on these challenges, Tate shares: "Over the last ten years, there have been many events that created unpredictable traffic patterns, from the closure and reopening of the real estate market to stamp duty freezes, even the passing of monarchs. All of these significantly impacted our traffic patterns. But with Fastly, it's been business as usual."
With millions of users accessing Rightmove's website daily, maintaining performance, security, and resilience is critical. As Rightmove continues to expand its role in supporting users throughout the moving process, the platform increasingly handles sensitive and important consumer data. Protecting this information has become a top priority for the company.
"There are a number of reasons why Fastly was the best choice for Rightmove," Tate explains. "One was that we needed an all-in-one next-gen security stack for the front end of the website. We needed Bot Protection, WAF, and DDoS, and Fastly gave us a high-quality cloud-native version of that." Additionally, the company sought a future-proof platform that could grow with their evolving requirements while aligning with their engineering-led culture.
Supporting B2B services with enhanced security
"As we expand our B2B product set to deliver more value for our partners and customers across the property lifecycle, it's really important we're able to provide always-on, reliable, and secure services for them," says Tate. With mortgage lenders, surveyors, and estate agents using Rightmove's platform daily to facilitate transactions, security and reliability have become core tenets of their engineering vision.
A cultural fit for engineering excellence
Tate emphasizes that Fastly's engineering-led approach has been a significant factor in their continued partnership. "One of the things I really value about Fastly is the people and the culture. Being an engineering-led organization and really caring about their customers has meant that no matter what level we're engaging at, whether it's senior management, sales team, or the technical delivery folks, everyone's passionate and understands what you're trying to achieve as a customer, and they're there to try and make your lives better."
Key takeaway
For Rightmove, reliability and security are non-negotiable as they provide a trusted platform for the entire property industry. "At Rightmove, reliability and security are core tenets of our engineering vision. We're building a trusted platform not only to the millions of people searching for properties and moving home every week in the UK, but also to our B2B customers, estate agents, mortgage lenders, and surveyors who facilitate transactions across the property lifecycle every day," Tate concludes. With Fastly's integrated security stack and cultural alignment, Rightmove continues to deliver exceptional service to both consumers and business partners throughout the real estate journey.