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Azure Front Door vs Windows Azure CDN comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Ranking in CDN
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
WAN Optimization (4th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (9th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (2nd), Managed DNS (1st), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (5th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th)
Azure Front Door
Ranking in CDN
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (12th), Microsoft Security Suite (18th)
Windows Azure CDN
Ranking in CDN
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 15.0%, down from 21.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure Front Door is 5.1%, down from 16.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Windows Azure CDN is 2.8%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CDN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cloudflare15.0%
Azure Front Door5.1%
Windows Azure CDN2.8%
Other77.1%
CDN
 

Featured Reviews

M.A. Faisal - PeerSpot reviewer
General Manager at bKash Limited
Advanced protection has secured critical web workloads and provides clear traffic visibility
From a security perspective, there remains a security loophole, as some browsers in the market can bypass the Turnstile solution, which requires approximately 40 seconds to do so. From a performance perspective, this is acceptable. We also tried Google reCAPTCHA, and that can also be bypassed. From a security perspective, I would say neither solution is completely secured. Regarding uptime, we have faced a couple of incidents due to Cloudflare in recent years, so I cannot say we receive 100% uptime for our region. We sometimes face challenges, including downtime and other issues. As a result, we are not receiving 100% uptime from Cloudflare's solution. Since most of our customers are in this region, we need alternatives. We need something more competitive than Cloudflare. Unfortunately, in Bangladesh, Cloudflare has three points of presence already, and we cannot find any other solution provider in Bangladesh as an alternative, which presents another challenge. Competitor solutions have more attack signatures, which ensure better security compared to Cloudflare's predefined configurations. Customers do not have options to modify any configuration parameters in Cloudflare, whereas other competitor solutions, such as F5 Distributed Cloud, allow customers to tune configurations according to their requirements. Cloudflare could improve in this area. Additionally, regarding visibility, Cloudflare has static visibility, but they could adopt dynamic graph features for their customers.
reviewer2226693 - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Optimizing global application performance with robust security measures and advanced traffic management
DDoS capabilities in Azure Front Door could certainly be improved. Although Microsoft states it comes with basic DDoS protections out of the box, I find it often ineffectual in mitigating thousands of requests from a single source in a short span of time. User then have to rely on the WAF module where users must configure rate-limiting rules, as it does not automatically sense malicious spikes in traffic. I believe Front Door should have an out-of-the-box premium DDoS protection that can automatically detect and block malicious traffic. I would appreciate improvements in the turnaround time for support, especially since issues with Azure Front Door are usually critical for businesses. If there is an issue, it often results in downtime for line of business applications. I have faced this situation multiple times as one of the largest financial institutions in India is hosted there, adhering to strict SLAs that require prompt responses.
AA
Consultant at NatWest Group
Our data is cached faster and sites load faster
We use the solution for hosting static web applications. We use it to cache images or files We mostly distribute images through the CDN. Earlier, we were directly caching from the server to CDN. Since we started using the solution, there has been a significant improvement in the response time.…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"CloudFlare has positively improved my site's speed, performance and security."
"Their free account offers an awful lot of functionality and savings alone, before you get on to the minimal $20 a month for a Pro account which comes with its own great list of features."
"This solution has improved the security of our organization."
"Cloudflare is very straightforward."
"The setup and configuration is also easy to perform and their support is excellent."
"If it was not for CloudFlare, I would have to hire a dedicated resource to manage all this for me."
"It is easier to configure and develop documentation to see how we have configured firewalls."
"Centralized, full-featured DNS."
"I am impressed with the tool's integrations."
"It works perfectly and you can assign as many web application firewall policies as you want to the same instance of Front Door."
"The price is one of the most important aspects of the product. It's quite affordable."
"The tool is easy to use for beginners."
"I particularly appreciate its load-balancing capabilities as it allows us to manage multiple instances and support a global presence effectively."
"I find the technical support excellent, and I rate it a ten."
"Has a great application firewall and we like the security."
"The price is one of the most important aspects of the product; it's quite affordable, and the ease of the implementation is really vital because it's very easy to implement for our customers as we simply handle the first phase and Microsoft does all the rest."
"The UI is very intuitive."
"The geolocation feature is very important because many colleagues travel worldwide and need to access information from anywhere. The product has improved security."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that one can access Windows Azure CDN from anywhere."
"I like that CDN offers a routing feature."
"I enjoy engaging in discussions with colleagues possessing unique expertise. I leverage the three platforms—Azure, Google, and AWS extensively. This allows me to offer diverse solutions to customers, commonly referred to as a multi-cloud approach."
"The most valuable feature of Windows Azure CDN is its effectiveness."
"It is a stable solution."
"One of the best features of Windows Azure CDN is that it has integrated WAF; it is not only CDN alone and it is a very smart and capable WAF."
 

Cons

"Several features that I think is essential is not available in the free and business package."
"There could be more courses with engineers. I like e-learning, however, having a specialist in a classroom is more comfortable for me."
"The installation was complex until I learned what I had to learn."
"There should at least be a read-only view of the data so that resellers can properly support the clients."
"The product support needs to be accessible from more places, a wider area of coverage."
"More insight into analytics and threats would be a good place to start improving Cloudflare."
"The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Cloudflare are a bit on the higher side overall."
"It would be good if Cloudflare could have more servers for better traffic routing or an increase in the traffic routed. This is what I'd like to improve in Cloudflare."
"This is a relatively expensive solution."
"The tool should improve its cost."
"I dislike the URL set parameters."
"The user interface needs improvement as it is difficult to create the mapping to link the problem with your private address sources."
"I'm responsible for the governance and cost control of Azure. I'm not a specialist in any products and therefore I couldn't really speak effectively to features that are lacking or missing."
"Although Microsoft states it comes with basic DDoS protections out of the box, I find it often ineffectual in mitigating thousands of requests from a single source in a short time."
"We should be able to use Front Door defenders with multiple cloud vendors. Currently, they can be used only with the Azure cloud. Azure Front Door should also be able to do global load balancing and provide internal front door services. Microsoft should clearly define what Traffic Manager, Application Gateway, and Azure Front Door products do. These are similar products, and people get confused between these products."
"They can lower the price. Lowering the price should encourage customers to use and adopt Azure Front Door, especially since some customers are not using any security features."
"It is not a weakness of Windows Azure CDN; rather, it is the fact that it is outside Saudi Arabia, leading to some regulation issues."
"The response time of the support team must be improved."
"Azure is continuously improving its CDN but the documentation should be up-to-date."
"Windows Azure CDN should lower its prices."
"I aim to enhance the reporting."
"The high price of Windows Azure CDN is an area of concern where improvements can be made."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"Exploring shared access solutions with cloud accounts would be a beneficial choice."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."
"We don't have any issues with the price."
"We are using the free tier of the solution."
"The pricing for the service is reasonable, neither excessively cheap nor prohibitively expensive. It aligns well with the value of their solution."
"It's a premium model. You can start at zero and work your way up to the enterprise model, which has a very high pricing level."
"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."
"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."
"The pricing of the solution is good."
"The solution is a bit expensive."
"It is on a pay-as-you-go basis."
"The product is expensive."
"Considering the standard licensing of the tool, even though we have not checked the billing as of now, it might not be very costly."
"The transition to the premium tier has led to increased costs, making it more expensive than the classic tier."
"The solution's price depends on how much traffic you have. So, it was okay for us. Payments are to be made on a monthly basis since one has to pay for what they used."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten."
"The pricing of the solution depends on usage and varies based on the company's needs. If you want additional features like advanced logging, it will be pricier. However, it could be cheaper if you don't need those features. It all depends on the resources and requirements."
"The tool's pricing is cheap."
"I rate the price of Windows Azure CDN a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is high."
"The tool's pricing is cheap."
"It comes at a relatively affordable cost."
"The solution's price is above the medium range."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise26
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GR...
Which would you choose - Cloudflare DNS or Quad9?
Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare DNS?
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Cloudflare are a bit on the higher side overall.
What's the difference between Azure Front Door and Application Gateway?
We found Azure Front Door to be easily scaled and very stable. The implementation is very fast and Microsoft provides...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Front Door?
I am not sure about the pricing but believe Azure Front Door might require a higher cost due to its entry point nature.
What needs improvement with Azure Front Door?
DDoS capabilities in Azure Front Door could certainly be improved. Although Microsoft states it comes with basic DDoS...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Windows Azure CDN?
In terms of pricing for Windows Azure CDN and the whole Microsoft products, you cannot compare networking alone or co...
What needs improvement with Windows Azure CDN?
It is not a weakness of Windows Azure CDN; rather, it is the fact that it is outside Saudi Arabia, leading to some re...
What is your primary use case for Windows Azure CDN?
We are using Windows Azure CDN, Azure AI capability for a translator, Azure Front Door for CDN, and from Microsoft's ...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
Azure Front-Door
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.
Information Not Available
NORAD, Agreeya Mobility
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Front Door vs. Windows Azure CDN and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.