F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs Windows Azure CDN comparison

F5 and Microsoft are both solutions in the CDN category. F5 is ranked #11 with an average rating of 10.0, while Microsoft is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.4. F5 holds a 0.9% mindshare in CDN, compared to Microsoft’s 3.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

Windows Azure CDN and F5 Distributed Cloud Services are competing in the cloud services market for content delivery. F5 Distributed Cloud Services have a more robust feature set, whereas Windows Azure CDN is more appealing in pricing and customer support.

Features: Windows Azure CDN integrates with Microsoft Azure, supports seamless scalability, and offers extensive global reach. F5 Distributed Cloud Services provide advanced security, comprehensive threat protection, and real-time analytics, making them suitable for high-security needs.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Windows Azure CDN allows straightforward deployment within Azure's ecosystem, offering comprehensive documentation and prompt customer support. F5 Distributed Cloud Services offer flexible deployment for complex architectures, though requiring more technical expertise. Their customer service provides in-depth support, perceived as more technical.

Pricing and ROI: Windows Azure CDN offers a transparent pricing structure with competitive setup costs, making it appealing to cost-conscious organizations. The integration with Azure services enhances ROI. F5 Distributed Cloud Services, while seen as costly upfront, offer superior features that yield higher ROI for organizations needing advanced functionalities. Buyers should weigh budget constraints against feature requirements to make informed decisions.

To learn more, read our detailed F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. Windows Azure CDN Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. Windows Azure CDN

April 2025

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 22.3%, up from 21.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Distributed Cloud Services is 0.9%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Windows Azure CDN is 3.0%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

CDN

Featured Reviews

Spencer Malmad

Owner at Tech Exchange

It's easy to set up because you point the DNS to it, and it's working in under 15 minutes

Cloudflare is highly scalable. Cloudflare is a system with a web portal that the end users like me see. It's a console where we can adjust the DNS, caching, and security features all in that console. Cloudflare owns thousands of servers across the world that cache the data. It's a powerful solution. When clients sign up for Cloudflare, they're getting this monster content delivery network, security, and a web application firewall in one. It's all rolled into one, and it's massive. Unless you have your website hosted on a massive hosting provider, there's no way that you can deliver the amount of data that Cloudflare can provide to the end users. If you have static content, there's no way that you can ever match what Cloudflare can do. Obviously, there are competitors to Cloudflare that do the same, but I'm saying other types of solutions. Let's say you go with F5. Great, that's on-prem. That's in your colo. You can't deliver as much data to the internet as you can with a CDN. You don't have to spend $20,000 on a net scaler, F5, or whatever Cisco's selling now. You don't have to buy that. You pay them $50 a month or $150 a month. It's totally worth it because even in five years, you'll never get the performance value, not just the actual ROI. You have to consider how much throughput you can get with Cloudflare.

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Filip Mikulik

IT Analyst at Atlas.cz, a.s.

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.

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Fernando Coy

DevOps Engineer at Globant

Has a good routing feature

Azure facilitates timely delivery through a platform tailored for multi-region retailing. It ensures efficient product delivery, facilitates product checking, and provides a seamless login experience on web pages. These integrations are essential for any retail company looking to optimize its solution. Azure CDN integrates directly with actual resources. It's really easy to integrate or add resources, whether through our API management or other methods. I recommend integrating the value service by switching from Azure to another CDN provider to deliver content to the final user. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a fast and secure DNS."

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is that it has a free version. They give us the free version with the anti-DDoS features and also the load balancing solution."

"We're using dynamic components to build flexible pages to create and manage Git merge requests for code and reviews."

"There are key things that are used for our enterprise customers, such as Lambda and DNS."

"From what I've seen so far, there are no negatives to report as of yet"

"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."

"The technical support is good."

"Many websites require an SSL certificate because they sell stuff and want SSL. Cloudflare comes with an SSL certificate built in. It's automatic. You sign yourself up for Cloudflare, and an SSL certificate automatically protects your website. You don't necessarily need a certificate if you have a connection between your website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host."

More Cloudflare pros

"In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation."

"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."

"The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation."

"We use the product for faster content delivery with low latency."

"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 UI is very intuitive."

"One of the tool's best features is its ability to handle edge cases. For instance, we encountered a situation where we needed to remove certain files from public access. The solution offered a purge feature that allowed us to remove these files. This feature ensured that the files were deleted from all edge servers. Subsequently, we were able to upload new versions of the files."

"The most valuable feature of Windows Azure CDN is its effectiveness."

"One of the most valuable aspects is the capability to store extensive datasets and objects in the cloud, enabling their download through shared access signatures."

"It is a stable solution."

"The geolocation feature is very important because many colleagues travel worldwide and need to access information from anywhere. The product has improved security."

More Windows Azure CDN pros

Cons

"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."

"Cloudflare could be improved by introducing a mid-tier pricing option."

"I believe they currently have this feature, but there will most likely be integration with APIs so we can control some features through API."

"Cloudflare's free plan is limited to 5,000 records for their free plan. They should increase that. For example, if I create a domain called abc.com and a subdomain called a.abc.com, my record count will be two. I can make a maximum of 5,000 subdomains. However, if we use our own DNS hosted on another provider, there is no limit. Their free plan also lacks name server customization."

"The documentation could improve for Cloudflare DNS."

"Latencies are always a problem."

"It should be easier to collect the logs with companies like Sumo. However, based on my discussions with the salespeople, I understand that's how they make their money. With the enterprise product, they want people doing those kinds of enterprise features to do the logging. They want them to pay a lot of money, and that's where I have an issue with them. That should be a default. You should be able to get the log no matter what. The logging should be universal."

"Cloudflare should add more documentation and pricing to the cloud version."

More Cloudflare cons

"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 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 solution’s pricing could be improved."

"The high price of Windows Azure CDN is an area of concern where improvements can be made."

"They should include configuration for cache rules."

"The response time of the support team must be improved."

"I aim to enhance the reporting."

"We have experienced issues with switch connectivity."

"There were a few bugs that were very disappointing. So, that is a part of the reason why we started using Fastly."

"I believe Windows Azure CDN can improve monitoring and measuring overall end-user performance. Providing monitoring tools or agents that can be integrated into our pages would be highly beneficial. Setting up a custom domain with Windows Azure CDN involves proving domain ownership, which can take some time. The process is relatively straightforward if your DNS or domain registrar is already integrated with Microsoft. However, the verification process may be more time-consuming if you use a different service provider."

More Windows Azure CDN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is reasonable."

"The product's pricing is cheap."

"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."

"I think the pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."

"The price of the solution is expensive."

"In terms of licensing costs, we don't pay for licensing for Cloudflare. We only establish communication, then for peering, Cloudflare takes care of the cross-connection in different data centers."

"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 pricing for the service is reasonable, neither excessively cheap nor prohibitively expensive. It aligns well with the value of their solution."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

Information not available

"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."

"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 solution's price is above the medium range."

"The tool's pricing is cheap."

"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."

"The pricing is extremely high, almost 9 out of 10."

More Windows Azure CDN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

15%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

31%

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

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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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Windows Azure CDN?

One of the tool's best features is its ability to handle edge cases. For instance, we encountered a situation where w...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Windows Azure CDN?

The pricing of the solution depends on usage and varies based on the company's needs. If you want additional features...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Windows Azure CDN?

Windows Azure CDN should lower its prices.

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 50% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Imperva DDoS vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

F5 Silverline Managed Services vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 24% of the time

Akamai vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 16% of the time

Akamai API Security vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 14% of the time

Imperva Web Application Firewall vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 11% of the time

More F5 Distributed Cloud Services Competitors

Akamai vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 27% of the time

Edgio vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 20% of the time

Amazon CloudFront vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 14% of the time

Fastly vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 8% of the time

More Windows Azure CDN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

May 2025

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

CDN

May 2025

Download F5 Distributed Cloud Services product report

Buyer's Guide

CDN

May 2025

Download Windows Azure CDN product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

No data available

Overview

Cloudflare is a highly-regarded Content Delivery Network (CDN) and a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) protection solution. The robust global connectivity cloud platform that is Cloudflare ensures users are able to connect to the Internet quickly, securely, and reliably. Cloudflare is one of the world's largest networks in the marketplace today. Using Cloudflare, businesses, educational entities, NGOs, vloggers, bloggers, and anyone else with an internet presence can experience more secure, faster websites and applications.

Currently, there are millions of Internet locations on Cloudflare, and the Cloudflare network
continues to grow every day by the thousands. The solution is able to fulfill the requests for
millions of websites seamlessly and serves on average 45 million HTTP requests per second.

Cloudflare has safe, secure data centers in close to 300 cities worldwide to ensure every
client request is filled as quickly as possible. It is Cloudflare’s edge network that makes this
possible by keeping content and other services as close to each client as possible, so the
information requests are always only seconds away.

Many organizations that work in democracy, civil society, human rights, or the arts are able to
access Cloudflare's highest levels of protection for free via Project Galileo. Additionally, official
election websites can be secured from hacking and fraud through Cloudflare’s Project
Athenian, also at no additional cost.

Cloudflare can also help organizations of all sizes develop a robust zero-trust strategy to
ensure the highest levels of productivity and profitability. Employees, stakeholders, and end users have a greater level of satisfaction and overall improved user experience, which can, in
turn, result in higher revenues and overall ROI. Zero-trust and BYOD (bring your own device)
access ensure end users and employees always have the best resources and technology
available to them at all times.

Cloudflare benefits

Cloudflare has many benefits. Some of its most valuable benefits include:

- Faster load times

- Robust DNS security

- Intuitive cloud Web Application Firewall (WAF)

- Free universal SSL

- Image enhancement

- Automatic browser caching

- Next-generation cloud load balancer

- Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

- Rate limiting

- Minification

- Zero-trust capabilities

- Cost-effective

- Reduced carbon footprint

Reviews from real users

“Many websites require an SSL certificate because they sell stuff and want SSL. Cloudflare
comes with an SSL certificate built in. It's automatic. You sign yourself up for Cloudflare, and
an SSL certificate automatically protects your website. If you have a connection between your
website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host, you don't necessarily need a
certificate.” Spencer M., Owner at Tech Exchange

“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.” Daniel P., Network Engineer at Ufinet

“The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is the GUI. You are able to control the solution very
well through the interface. There is a lot of functionality that is embedded in the service.” PeerSpot user, Competence Center Manager at a tech services company

Cloudflare

F5 Distributed Cloud Services excel in enhancing security, optimizing web application delivery, and ensuring robust network performance. Users value its integrated Web Application Firewall, DDoS protection, global server load balancing, and intuitive management interface. It boosts organizational efficiency, reduces operational costs, and scales seamlessly, making it essential for businesses operating in distributed environments.

Windows Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) caches static web content at strategically placed locations to provide maximum throughput for delivering content to users. The CDN offers developers a global solution for delivering high-bandwidth content by caching the content at physical nodes across the world.

Microsoft

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

Buyer's Guide

F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. Windows Azure CDN

April 2025

Free Report: F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. Windows Azure CDN

Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. Windows Azure CDN and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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