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F5 Distributed Cloud Services 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

F5 Distributed Cloud Services
Ranking in CDN
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (18th), API Security (8th)
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 November 2026, in the CDN category, the mindshare of F5 Distributed Cloud Services is 2.1%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Windows Azure CDN is 2.8%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CDN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
F5 Distributed Cloud Services2.1%
Windows Azure CDN2.8%
Other95.1%
CDN
 

Featured Reviews

Mohan Janarthanan - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions
Centralized security has protected APIs and optimized multi‑cloud traffic management
F5 Distributed Cloud Services has been used for two years for DDoS protection, and there is a particular feature called API protection. Within API protection, there is malicious user mitigation, which is one particular technology that has been implemented. This is a kind of advanced bot attack prevention. Malicious user mitigation is an AI/ML-based technology that was introduced by the F5 team, and this particular MUG protects rate limiting. If some users are having anomaly detection or someone is trying to do a bot attack, it will create a CAPTCHA challenge for that particular user alone and not for all users. For example, if someone is trying to act as a rogue, it will create a CAPTCHA challenge in the backend system on that particular system, so they cannot try again and again at the same time. It is for a concurrent session, and it will give the CAPTCHA challenge. This MUG, malicious user mitigation, prevents bot attacks. F5 Distributed Cloud Services includes the real-time intelligence feature, which helps with threat response strategies from a threat intelligence perspective. For example, if there are geo-restrictions or geo-based restrictions, sometimes people may come in through proxy-based servers, and it will prevent that. The load balancing feature optimizes application performance. Observability is the basic piece where F5 got introduced. This observability piece provides end-to-end visibility on the application performance. It gives complete end-to-end visibility across network latency and application performance issues. Sometimes when it is getting more than 200 pages, it throws errors such as 300, 400, or whatever has been configured, including 500 errors. F5 Distributed Cloud Services has helped improve traffic management efficiency. Most applications are hosted in the Check Point and F5 firewall, F5 web application firewall, where applications and traffic management can be accessed in a single dashboard. Automated threat detection is a basic feature of F5 Distributed Cloud Services meant for that purpose. There are two scenarios with automated threat detection, which is provided by F5. It is a completely machine learning solution that came from the bot defense, and it automatically protects against sophisticated attacks.
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

"Elastic environments are the most valuable features because I can pull these apps and migrate the on-premises environment to the Distributed Cloud environment, and this capability is very strong and the security regarding the apps is really very powerful."
"F5 Distributed Cloud Services provides a single unified console for security operations, network operations, and DevOps across all environments."
"F5 Distributed Cloud Services has helped improve my traffic management efficiency overall because it is cheaper than Silverline."
"In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation."
"F5 Distributed Cloud Services has positively impacted my organization from the security point of view, as all our applications are in a very stable, safe mode."
"Overall, I would recommend it; it is very easy to use and effective, and you can immediately configure the policies and configurations you need, with results appearing in seconds."
"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."
"F5 Distributed Cloud Services is the market leader in load balancers and manages traffic really well."
"I like that CDN offers a routing feature."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that one can access Windows Azure CDN from anywhere."
"The geolocation feature is very important because many colleagues travel worldwide and need to access information from anywhere. The product has improved security."
"We use the product for faster content delivery with low latency."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The fact that it just delivers what it is supposed to do is its most valuable feature...The initial setup is very straightforward."
 

Cons

"One area where F5 Distributed Cloud Services can be improved is in API security, which can be enhanced."
"Last year there was a downtime of 30 minutes across the cloud distributed console, and that was the only impact observed."
"The worst experience is that with so many solutions available, it is very complicated to know all of the solution modules, and the offers from F5 Distributed Cloud Services are vast."
"An improvement for F5 Distributed Cloud Services could be in usability."
"F5 Distributed Cloud Services still does not have the same flexibility as BIG-IP. It does not have iRules."
"For small players, it is completely not worth it."
"I would evaluate F5 technical support as not particularly fast in replying, but it is effective."
"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."
"There were a few bugs that were very disappointing. So, that is a part of the reason why we started using Fastly."
"Exploring shared access solutions with cloud accounts would be a beneficial choice."
"The response time of the support team must be improved."
"We have experienced issues with switch connectivity."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"I aim to enhance the reporting."
"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."
"They should include configuration for cache rules."
 

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."
"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."
"It comes at a relatively affordable cost."
"The solution's price is above the medium range."
"The pricing is extremely high, almost 9 out of 10."
"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 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 tool's pricing is cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
10%
Construction Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Insurance Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Transportation Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
Regarding pricing, I believe the prices are much higher than I expected, but for the time being, the customer is still paying. It is not really a cheap product. From a pricing perspective, there sh...
What needs improvement with F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
An improvement for F5 Distributed Cloud Services could be in usability. It is very powerful, but it can also be quite complex. When you have many applications and routes, the troubleshooting proces...
What is your primary use case for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
Our main use case for F5 Distributed Cloud Services is the application traffic management and security for our web applications. We rely on F5 Distributed Cloud Services primarily for load balancin...
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 compute alone; you need a full solution.
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 regulation issues. For computing, they could make a flex engine similar to other p...
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 side, we are selling many Microsoft E5 licenses. We are using it for our client.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
NORAD, Agreeya Mobility
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. Windows Azure CDN and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.