1. Cloudflare (NET)
If Fastly is the high-performance specialist, Cloudflare is its arch-rival aiming to be an all-in-one platform for internet infrastructure. Founded with a mission to build a better internet, Cloudflare combines a massive global network for content delivery
with a deep focus on security. Where Fastly has traditionally appealed to developers who want granular control, Cloudflare’s appeal is its integrated suite of services—from DDoS protection and firewalls to its developer platform, Workers. The company’s business model is built on a massive free tier that attracts millions of users, creating a flywheel where it can upsell more advanced security and performance features to a huge built-in customer base. Studying Cloudflare is a lesson in how to compete by bundling services and building a brand that is synonymous with both performance and security.
2. Akamai Technologies (AKAM)
To understand Fastly and Cloudflare, you have to understand the company that created their market: Akamai. Founded in the late 90s, Akamai is the original giant of the Content Delivery Network (CDN) world, born from an MIT challenge to solve internet congestion. For years, it was the default choice for the world's largest enterprises needing to deliver web content reliably. The story here is one of evolution. As nimble competitors like Fastly emerged, Akamai has been strategically shifting from its legacy CDN business toward higher-growth areas like cybersecurity and, more recently, cloud computing through its acquisition of Linode. Studying Akamai reveals the challenges and strategies of a market incumbent trying to innovate and pivot while defending its turf against disruptive challengers.
3. Twilio (TWLO)
Twilio’s story broadens the lens from content delivery to another critical piece of internet infrastructure: communications. Twilio doesn't move website data; it moves texts, calls, and emails through simple APIs that developers can build into any application. Like Fastly, Twilio is a developer-first company that succeeded by taking a complex, old-guard industry (telecom) and making its core functions accessible and programmable. Its usage-based business model, where customers pay for what they use, became a template for countless other API-first companies. Studying Twilio is an education in the power of the API economy and the strategy of building a platform by empowering developers to create their own solutions, turning complex infrastructure into a simple utility.
4. Datadog (DDOG)
If Fastly and Cloudflare ensure applications are fast and secure, Datadog ensures they are reliable. Datadog is a leader in the observability space, providing a platform that lets developers monitor the health of their complex cloud applications, servers, and infrastructure all in one place. Like Fastly, Datadog's success is tied to the explosion of complex, distributed software. Its “land-and-expand” business model is classic SaaS: a customer might start by monitoring their infrastructure, then add on application performance monitoring (APM), log management, and security monitoring over time. It’s another developer-centric company that thrives by unifying complex systems into a single pane of glass, making it an essential tool for any modern engineering team.
5. CrowdStrike (CRWD)
CrowdStrike connects to the Fastly story through the concept of the “edge,” but from a pure cybersecurity perspective. While Fastly secures applications at the network edge, CrowdStrike secures the endpoints—the laptops, servers, and mobile devices—that access those applications. The company pioneered a cloud-native approach to endpoint security, using a single, lightweight agent on each device that streams data to a central AI-powered brain for threat analysis. This model replaced clunky, on-premise antivirus software with a more agile and intelligent system capable of detecting sophisticated threats. Studying CrowdStrike offers a look into a similar business dynamic: a modern, cloud-first platform disrupting a legacy industry by leveraging the power of data and AI at a massive scale.
