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F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway comparison

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Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (12th)
F5 Distributed Cloud Services
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.4
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
CDN (10th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (20th), API Security (5th)
Microsoft Azure Application...
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (3rd), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (3rd)
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch - PeerSpot reviewer
Fast and secure deployments simplify operations for government and fintech clients
It is a fast and secure DNS. It is very easy to deploy, and my customers are happy with this tool. Additionally, the CDN performance in Mexico is excellent, providing fast service and tools. It offers reliability during high-traffic periods, ensuring no impact on the environment. It helps my clients avoid using on-premise boxes, simplifying operations as they only use the prices on Cloudflare.
FM
Protects web applications with comprehensive security features
All features are valuable. In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation. This is a comprehensive package for web application security. The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation.
DevenderVannela - PeerSpot reviewer
Ensures efficient traffic management and robust security while simplifying complex configurations
The best features for Microsoft Azure Application Gateway basically protect your application and provide security-related features and also divert the traffic to different instances of your application. I have used URL-based routing, which helps manage traffic efficiency. It is a bit hard to manage in the long run, but it does provide value. I have used the gateway's Web Application Firewall feature, which enhances security as it is the first entry point to your network from the outside world. It helps protect against unwanted requests and other threats that can be configured. Regarding the integration with Azure Active Directory, it helps with authentication processes to configure all the users or the groups. The monitoring capabilities on Azure provide insight into application performance and potential threats because monitoring comes with many products. On Azure, you have Azure Monitor itself to help you monitor the application by collecting data. You have Application Insights and the logging workspace on Azure. By combining these three, you can implement monitoring solutions on Azure applications. Auto-scaling is important because it helps in resource management for customers. Scaling is one of the key features of moving to cloud for any customer. During peak times or special events, such as retail site promotions, user load increases significantly. To address this, based on the number of incoming requests or server capacities such as CPU and memory, you can automatically identify these peak scenarios and configure either scaling up or down automatically based on certain parameters.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cloudflare consolidates various capabilities into one product, streamlining processes."
"It is a stable solution. I rate the stability a ten out of ten...I rate the scalability a ten out of ten."
"Its ease of integration with Office 365 and the fact that it's a good product compared to what I had before"
"What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering, so it's a valuable tool."
"When using services like Heroku, Cloudflare is very useful for CNAME flattening. I also use it for their end-to-end SSL with TLS authentication on nginx for securing servers."
"We're using dynamic components to build flexible pages to create and manage Git merge requests for code and reviews."
"The solution provides good load balancing and protection against DDoS attacks."
"Generally, I am satisfied with this product."
"F5 is known for being the best load balancer in the market. Customers with an existing module can easily adopt additional modules without investing in new hardware."
"In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation."
"The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation."
"The security feature in all the layers of the application is the most valuable."
"The solution's integration is very good."
"The solution was very easy to configure. It wasn't hard at all to adjust it to our needs."
"Application Gateway automatically redirects unwanted users and takes care of the security aspect. It also handles the performance side of things, which is why we use it."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy."
"WAF feature replicates the firewall."
"The solution provides great automation and it is easy to upgrade service."
"The solution integrates different applications and APIs securely, enhancing overall security and network optimization."
 

Cons

"Latencies are always a problem."
"The timing aspect can lead to it being considered overpriced. This is a particular concern we have with Cloudflare, as they may struggle with accurately detecting the client."
"It would be helpful if the solution could continue evolving to compete with the other solutions on the market."
"I would like Cloudflare to offer a dedicated account manager for large enterprise clients like us."
"Support response time could be improved."
"The solution could use more analytics on the backend to give us more insights into everything. More reports would be helpful."
"Technical support is not well developed. While there are good engineers, Cloudflare does not offer hands-on technical support to fix customer problems but rather a self-service model."
"The Cloudflare load balancing capability hasn't really helped in enhancing my website's uptime and resiliency because we don't really get that much traffic; it's mostly remote users, and web hosting is done by a web hosting service."
"The pricing could be adjusted to better meet the needs of typical customers in regions like Poland, where the product is considered too expensive."
"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF."
"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF. There are some problems, mainly from the perspective of implementation and customer expectations, which sometimes differ from reality."
"The user interface could be better."
"The solution has many limitations. You cannot upgrade the VPN to the application gateway. So I started with version one, which has limited capabilities, and they provided version two. And unfortunately, I cannot upgrade from v one to v two like other services. So I have to decommission the version one and create a new one with version two. Also the version one was complex with the certificates uploading the SQL certificates."
"Microsoft Azure Application Gateway's first deployment is complex. It needs to improve its pricing."
"We faced some downtime while validating CNAME."
"The support provided for the solution has certain shortcomings that need improvement, especially when it comes to the response time from the support team."
"It could be more stable, and support could be better. It would also be better if they offered more features. For example, it lacks security features. Before we used another English solution, and we realized that some of the rules were not set up correctly and passed through the Application Gateway's English controllers. But the problem, in this case, is if you send ten rules, for example, six rules hit some issues. IP address blocking could be better. The rules, for example, don't work properly. If you have one issue, one rule or another rule will not work. This sounds like total madness to me."
"The solution can sometimes feel a little cumbersome unless you're a professional infrastructure person."
"For the first-time user, it is difficult to understand so the user-interface needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution has many features but there are ones that you need to pay for. Sometimes you have to find out which is available for free and which you have to pay for."
"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."
"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."
"The product's pricing is cheap."
"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"I believe their performance has improved, but I'd like to refrain from discussing the pricing aspect related to the cloud. The pricing, in my opinion, could be simplified, and I think they should consider reevaluating the pricing for support, as it can be quite high. At times, this cost can make it challenging to choose CARFAGuard or opt for the support."
"We don't have any issues with the price."
"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."
Information not available
"The product is not expensive."
"There is some additional cost, such as extended support."
"The solution's pricing is not complex. It is not expensive from our point of view."
"It is not expensive."
"Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is expensive."
"Between v1 and v2, there is a lot of change in the pricing. It is very costly compared to AWS."
"The tool's pricing model is pay-as-you-go."
"Every solution comes with a license and cost. Microsoft provides the license and the total cost is for the maintenance every year."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Insurance Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise25
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise23
 

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 do you like most about Cloudflare?
Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
I am not involved in sales, so I do not deal with the pricing aspect directly. I give the cost of the solution a four...
What needs improvement with F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
It's a long way to be perfect, of course, as with all solutions. The main issue is integration with other parts or pr...
What is your primary use case for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
There are two main use cases for Distributed Call Services: DDoS or Distributed attacks protection and WAF web applic...
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...
How does AWS WAF compare to Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon’s Web Service Web Application Firewall or Microsoft...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?
Application Gateway automatically redirects unwanted users and takes care of the security aspect. It also handles the...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
Azure Application Gateway, MS Azure Application Gateway
 

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
Lilly, AccuWeather, AIRFRANCE, Honeywell
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,883 professionals have used our research since 2012.