Varnish Enterprise is our main solution to improve web performance and scalability by acting as a high-performance reverse proxy and caching layer in front of our application servers. Varnish Enterprise specifically helps with performance by reducing response time. Cached content is served directly from memory, which is significantly faster than generating it from the application layer. It also provides lower backend load and efficient handling of concurrent users.
Varnish Enterprise 6 (Ubuntu)
Varnish Software IncExternal reviews
101 reviews
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Caching layer has boosted performance and has simplified high-traffic web delivery
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
Beyond pure caching, we also use Varnish Enterprise as a control and optimization layer in front of our application. Beyond the main performance use case, we leverage it for advanced request handling and routing, security and backend protection. We also use it for grace and high-availability strategies and operational flexibility.
The best features Varnish Enterprise offers include high-performance caching, in-memory caching for ultra-fast content delivery, the flexible Varnish Configuration Language with full control over request and response logic, and Grace Mode and stale serving.
The flexible configuration language and Grace Mode specifically benefit our team by allowing us to implement complex routing, caching, and header logic at the edge without touching the backend code. This speeds up deployment and allows for quick experiments, such as A/B testing or custom cache rules.
Varnish Enterprise combines performance with observability and control. Fast-purge and selective invalidation give us precise control over content freshness without full cache clears.
Varnish Enterprise has had a significant positive impact on our organization with faster performance, reduced backload, better handling of traffic spikes, operational flexibility, and improved reliability.
What needs improvement?
A few areas where Varnish Enterprise could be improved are the management interface, where VCL is powerful, and a more intuitive visual interface for cache rule routing and purge could speed up operational tasks. It could also have more granular analytics, simpler multi-backend orchestration, integration with a modern observability stack, and edge computing features. Adding lightweight compute or scripting at the edge could allow for more dynamic content.
Easier deployment of VCL updates, better support for modern protocols, or more automated cache invalidation options could be considered for needed improvements.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used Varnish Enterprise for around three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Varnish Enterprise is absolutely stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of Varnish Enterprise is an amazing point.
How are customer service and support?
The customer support is adequate.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Negative
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before adopting Varnish Enterprise, we primarily used a combination of open-source Varnish and basic NGINX caching.
How was the initial setup?
Integrating Varnish Enterprise with our existing infrastructure was absolutely easy.
What was our ROI?
We have seen a tangible return on investment with Varnish Enterprise, and some real metrics include backend load reduction, response time improvement, operational efficiency, and downtime mitigation.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Our experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been generally positive, but there are a few considerations. It is a subscription-based model rather than a one-time license, which scales with traffic and the number of servers. For the setup cost, initial setup requires some engineering time. While not cheap, the investment pays off through reduced backend load, faster response time, and better stability, which often outweigh the subscription cost.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated NGINX Plus, Cloudflare, and Fastly before choosing Varnish Enterprise for its flexibility, performance, and backend protection.
What other advice do I have?
In our environment, Varnish Enterprise handles high availability and failover through a combination of redundancy, health checks, and Grace Mode.
The performance of Varnish Enterprise compared to other caching solutions I have used or considered is extremely positive.
The security of Varnish Enterprise is amazing. It meets my organization's requirements and is the best, in my opinion.
The documentation has a learning curve, but it is good. For me, it is perfect.
The monitoring and observability in Varnish Enterprise provide enough visibility for my team, but it requires some setup.
Varnish Enterprise handles custom logic, such as A/B testing or personalized content delivery, through its Varnish Configuration Language, which gives full control over request and response processing, A/B testing, personalized content, and edge logic.
My advice to others looking into using Varnish Enterprise is to start with clear caching goals. Invest time in learning VCL. Monitor cache effectiveness, leverage Grace Mode, and test in a staging environment.
I have rated this review a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Value adding component, securing end user experience and cost efficient
What do you like best about the product?
It is flexible, securing our web development from request to response from client to backend and back again. Cost efficient, fast load to clients, low usage of backend infrastructure. High availability.
What do you dislike about the product?
Very hard to say anything less good about Varnish. It's a technical product, built by technical people for technical usage, But make everyone happy from technicians to end users. One thing is that is so in front line of services to manage subscription thats its harder for a large company with security regulations to manage installation media and patches, but that problem is more on our side rather than problem with Varnish.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Performance, fast responses. Securing backend. High availability with grace functionality.
Perfect htyp cache software
What do you like best about the product?
Varnish is very easy to configure, and becomes a kind ok swiss-army knife to handle/debug/optimize http trafic
What do you dislike about the product?
Some modules are only available using souscription.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Varnish helps us reduicing load on web and databases servers
Just Exceptional... awesome in all way possible
What do you like best about the product?
It provides lightning fast web and video enhancement. It's service is so smooth that it will help play video smoothly even for large audiences
What do you dislike about the product?
When DNS is not secure...it crashes more often. So it needs to be configured for that.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It's quite easy to use. It helped our website with improved speed and improve online security with Good SSL certificate. So the things will be now more secure and more smooth.
This is great centralize caching mechanism and improves performance.
What do you like best about the product?
Flexibility to install this any part of the world. It is flexible to customize your code in the VCL
What do you dislike about the product?
Connector with Akamai is not matured enough. Controller is still requires some work.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Primarily Performance and also bringing Cached content closer to CDN.
Improved Streaming Service
What do you like best about the product?
After using the application, we can improve the speed of the video buffering website up to 60-90%. We can improve the performance as this website has designed the also in such a way that they can process the cache in a better way.
What do you dislike about the product?
Apart from the higher cost I love this tool. They have thought and designed everything very artistically.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We are able to save Internet bandwidth upto 20% by proper utilising the cache.
Varnish has got a very promising technology and niche expertise in media and entertainment.
What do you like best about the product?
Robust product, Niche technology with easy tailoring
What do you dislike about the product?
An integrated DNS with a better UI is one good idea.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Media caching on a private cdn
Next level content delivery
What do you like best about the product?
Varnish is an easy to manage software with an easily maneuverable Graphical User Interface. The app does a great job caching content for local and internal websites, providing a great user experience for in-house developed web portals.
What do you dislike about the product?
Upgrade options are available only via the CLI and should also be made available via the Web interface. An administrator can get locked out from upgrading the software if they lose access to the CLI.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We have a lot of in-house developed portals which are used by internal teams and clients. Varnish enhances the user experience by caching the content for such portals.
Varnish is the best I know for http caching
What do you like best about the product?
Performance, robustness, open-source, documentation.
What do you dislike about the product?
The VCL syntax and complex subroutines logic is a bit hard to comprehend at first.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
I use Varnish for HTTP caching, which seems to be the main use case.
One of the best software to cache http requests
What do you like best about the product?
It improves our application performance.
What do you dislike about the product?
The controller UI does not show the request URL
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
improves page load performance after enabling cache for all incoming HTTP request
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