Press releases

Fastly Launches Compute@Edge

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (Nov. 6, 2019)Fastly, Inc. (NYSE: FSLY), provider of an edge cloud platform, today announces the beta launch of Compute@Edge, a powerful new language-agnostic compute environment. The major milestone marks an evolution of Fastly’s edge computing capabilities and the company’s innovation in the serverless space. Fastly’s Compute@Edge is designed to empower developers to build far more advanced edge applications with greater security, more robust logic, and new levels of performance.


Developers are being empowered to create new and improved digital experiences with their own technology choices around the cloud platforms, services, and programming languages needed. Rather than spend time on operational overhead, their goal is to continue to reinvent the way end users live, work, and play on the web. Fastly's Compute@Edge gives developers the freedom to push complex logic closer to end users, and reduces the time to innovate by allowing developers to focus on strategy that drives their companies forward.


Fastly Compute@Edge Leverages Speed for Global Scale and Security

At 35.4 microseconds, Fastly’s Compute@Edge environment offers a 100x faster startup time than any other solution on the market. Benefits of Compute@Edge, powered by Fastly’s WebAssembly compiler and runtime, include:



  • Instant scale, around the globe: Code is run around the world instead of a single region. This allows developers to reduce code execution latency and further optimize the performance of their code — without worrying about managing the underlying infrastructure.

  • Improved security posture: The unmatched speed at which the environment operates, combined with Fastly’s isolated sandboxing technology, reduces the risk of accidental data leakage. With a “burn-after-reading” approach to request memory, entire classes of vulnerabilities are eliminated.

  • Serverless compute environment: Fastly added tooling to support Rust as the second language – in addition to Varnish Configuration Language (VCL) – for Compute@Edge, due to its growing popularity in innovative, forward-thinking organizations. More languages will be added in the future.


"As DevOps takes root in enterprises, there's a growing push to empower developers with the capabilities they need to create and run applications in a broader range of compute environments," said Craig Matsumoto, Senior Analyst at 451 Research. "This includes the option of tapping into computing power outside centralized clouds, often for performance or security reasons. Fastly's Compute@Edge is positioned as this type of environment for executing logic at the edge."


Fastly has operated in the serverless market since its founding in 2011 through its Edge Cloud Platform, including products like Full Site Delivery, Load Balancer, DDoS, and Web Application Firewall (WAF). To date, Fastly’s serverless computing offering has focused on delivery-centric use cases via its VCL-powered programmable edge. With the introduction of Compute@Edge, Fastly unlocks even more powerful and widely-applicable computing capabilities.


“When we started Fastly, we sought to build a platform with the power to realize the future of edge computing — from our software-defined modern network to our point of presence design, everything has led us to this point,” explained Tyler McMullen, CTO of Fastly. “With this launch, we’re excited to double down on that vision and work with enterprises to help them build truly complete applications in an environment that offers new levels of stability, security, and global scale."


To learn more about Fastly’s edge computing and cloud services, visit its blog. Developers and businesses interested in being part of the beta can sign up for details by reaching out to compute-edge@fastly.com, or visiting https://www.fastly.com/products/edge-compute/beta.

About Fastly

Fastly helps people stay better connected with the things they love. Fastly’s edge cloud platform enables customers to create great digital experiences quickly, securely, and reliably by processing, serving, and securing our customers’ applications as close to their end-users as possible — at the edge of the internet. Fastly’s platform is designed to take advantage of the modern internet, to be programmable, and to support agile software development with unmatched visibility and minimal latency, empowering developers to innovate with both performance and security. Fastly’s customers include many of the world’s most prominent companies, including Pinterest, The New York Times, and GitHub.

This press release contains “forward-looking” statements that are based on Fastly’s beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to Fastly on the date of this press release. Forward-looking statements may involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause its actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. These statements include, but are not limited to, those regarding the ability of developers to build advanced edge applications, the speed, security and computing capabilities of Fastly’s Compute@Edge environment, and the evolution of Compute@Edge in the market. Except as required by law, Fastly assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements publicly, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future. Important factors that could cause Fastly’s actual results to differ materially are detailed from time to time in the reports Fastly files with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including in its quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2019. Copies of reports filed with the SEC are posted on Fastly’s website and are available from Fastly without charge.

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