Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Akamai vs Azure Front Door comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 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
7.2
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th)
Akamai
Ranking in CDN
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Azure Front Door
Ranking in CDN
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (8th), Microsoft Security Suite (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 22.7%, up from 21.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai is 17.0%, up from 16.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure Front Door is 19.5%, up from 19.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CDN
 

Featured Reviews

Spencer Malmad - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Aryan Singh1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers great enterprise support, ideal for solutions requiring high scalability and seamless integration with AWS infrastructure
For Akamai, it is definitely one of the best tools out there. However, there are challenges with how their approach is designed for large enterprises. While it's great for solutions with high scalability, like global e-commerce, it's not really built for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). It has too many options and can be complex for SMBs to utilize. That's the biggest challenge we faced when migrating to Akamai from other solutions, like Cloudflare. It can be difficult to migrate between platforms. Due to its great features but high activation thresholds. So, while it's a powerful tool, it has limitations for some implementations. It was difficult to migrate from and to Akamai. It is challenging when we are building a website.
Thomas Zebar - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides great security with a good application firewall
The initial setup is straightforward. If you want to use the portal, CLI, or PowerShare, or you want to use automation data for one month, it's straightforward. Even when it comes to operational maintenance, it's pretty easy and straightforward. Microsoft has done a great job on that front. Maintenance generally requires someone who is a cloud administrator or similar to maintain services in general, with Front Door a small piece of a larger maintenance requirement. There's not a lot to manage, the configuration is simple. I encourage people to document the configuration and infrastructure as well as disaster recovery in case anything happens.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The simplicity of the overall dashboard makes it a great product for a user like me who has less understanding of the internet than a developer or other more technical people. It gives me peace of mind. I also love the easy customization of the Page Rules."
"DDoS attacks target unprotected machines. Cloudflare detects and stops these attacks using internal systems. It identifies incoming DDoS attacks, issuing challenges or blocking them immediately."
"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."
"There are key things that are used for our enterprise customers, such as Lambda and DNS."
"Cloudflare is a security SaaS provider that provides security and protects us from any application layer attack."
"Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications."
"Its most significant benefit to date is the speed with which it refreshes DNS records on the internet once you change it. If you are changing a website or registering a new record, it is very quick."
"The features of Cloudflare were found to be more beneficial and led to the decision to utilize it over other options."
"If an attacker conducts an attack, we can check what query he is running and whether he wants to see our password or any other files."
"Akamai has a very established network of PoPs globally."
"Akamai is leveraged by many top-level businesses, ensuring reliability and support in case of outages or issues."
"We can see how much traffic can be downloaded on the portal."
"As of now, the best thing about Akamai is WAF, and though CDN is a good feature, it comes in second place when compared to WAF. I am very impressed with the WAF offered by Akamai."
"The solution's technical support is very prompt and good."
"The solution's technical support is very good...The installation phase of Akamai was easy."
"The most valuable feature in managing web traffic has been the ability to handle vertical scaling effectively."
"The most valuable feature is that I can have CDN and load-balancing capabilities in a single service instead of managing two separate tools."
"Rules Engine is a valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature is that you can implement resources globally. It does not depend on location and ability or something like that. This is to connect clients around the world."
"The price is one of the most important aspects of the product. It's quite affordable."
"You can assign as many web application firewall policies as you want to the same instance of Front Door."
"Has a great application firewall and we like the security."
"The solution is good."
"I particularly appreciate its load-balancing capabilities as it allows us to manage multiple instances and support a global presence effectively."
 

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."
"Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to buy Cloudflare in my country."
"For the free and Pro plans, Cloudflare could use a simple bot to provide information to users. This would improve support, especially for less advanced users who utilize the free components."
"The tool needs to improve caching of servers. The product needs to include PFX certificate as well."
"DNS Management."
"An integrated SSO feature would be useful for Cloudflare DNS."
"Although I think it's quite good, it doesn't provide me with all the features I would expect to have if I were using Imperva."
"In the last two years, there has been a certain amount of downtime when using the VDM."
"After three or four months from this perspective, I don’t know all the features on the platform yet, so I am still learning about it."
"Akamai's configuration part is an area of concern where improvements are required to make the process easy."
"Akamai should improve its integrations."
"I'd like to see improvements in log files and data visualizations within the interface."
"I'd like to see more Web 3.0 and IoT solutions."
"One area for improvement with Akamai could be pricing."
"Sometimes a little hard to navigate around the user console."
"Their support is very slow. If you file a support ticket, it takes a long time before it gets resolved."
"It lacks sufficient functionality."
"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."
"There could be improvements regarding its pricing for large-scale projects."
"There could be improvements regarding its pricing for large-scale projects."
"The product needs to improve its latency."
"This is a relatively expensive solution."
"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."
"The tool should improve its cost."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."
"We don't have any issues with the price."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."
"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."
"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."
"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"This is a very expensive solution but it works well."
"From the resource component, it's very costly, and Akamai's charges are also high. So, any organization with a high-tech budget can definitely afford it, but companies with 10-15% of their revenue as a technical budget probably won't be able to. That's where they have a lot of room for improvement if they want to onboard those early users."
"The price of Akamai could be less expensive."
"Price-wise, I find Akamai's pricing model's inclination to be more towards the expensive side of the spectrum, though I can't say that it is a very expensive product."
"The pricing of Akamai is moderate, in my opinion. My company makes yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to Akamai. There are no additional costs besides the licensing costs for the solution."
"The price of the solution depends upon its usage."
"The solution's pricing is based on bandwidth."
"Akamai is an expensive tool. Moreover, we have a pay-as-you-go model for additional features."
"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 is a bit expensive."
"It is on a pay-as-you-go basis."
"The pricing of the solution is good."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which CDN solutions are best for your needs.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user69348 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 17, 2013
Akamai vs. CloudFlare – Simple Stats
In the world of CDNs Akamai is the incumbent 500 pound gorilla, no question. They have a HUGE global presence, super solid technology and networks, and have the most experience with large enterprise clients. However, now there other strong players in the CDN market. One of the most…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
18%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
22%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 do you like most about Akamai?
The most valuable feature in managing web traffic has been the ability to handle vertical scaling effectively.
What needs improvement with Akamai?
Akamai could improve by having a more robust and responsive support team. While the support is not bad, there is room...
What is your primary use case for Akamai?
We use Akamai ( /products/akamai-reviews ) as our CDN ( /categories/cdn ) to advertise prefixes and download traffic....
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
Azure Front-Door
 

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.
Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Bank of America, Capital One, Cisco, Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines, Disney, Ebay, Facebook, Google, Home Depot, HP, IBM, Intel, JPMorgan Chase, LinkedIn, McDonald's, Microsoft, Netflix, Nike, Oracle, PayPal, Pinterest, Qualcomm, Rakuten, SAP, Spotify, Tesla, Toyota, Visa, Walmart, WeWork
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai vs. Azure Front Door and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.