Akamai vs Windows Azure CDN comparison

Akamai and Microsoft are both solutions in the CDN category. Akamai is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.5, while Microsoft is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.4. Akamai holds a 16.4% mindshare in CDN, compared to Microsoft’s 3.1% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Akamai users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Akamai and Windows Azure CDN based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two CDN solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Akamai vs. Windows Azure CDN Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Akamai vs. Windows Azure CDN

March 2025

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Helped 842,296 peers since 2012

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 March 2025, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 22.7%, up from 21.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai is 16.4%, up from 16.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Windows Azure CDN is 3.1%, up from 2.3% 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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XYX ABC

Product Manager at Infozion

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.

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Muhammad ZaheerNazir

Team Lead and Solutions Architect at Systems Arabia

Helps to handle edge cases and has purge features

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.

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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

"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."

"Cloudflare DNS is widely used, and it's good for websites. If we use Cloudflare DNS and update one record, it updates in their office instantly."

"The solution offers the flexibility to control configuration rules."

"It's very user-friendly."

"Cloudflare allows us to self-host services such as Rocket.Chat and Node-RED, in high-availability mode, thanks to round robin DNS which allows us to share one hostname between our two locations."

"Easier http to https redirect using page rules"

"The solution automatically detects and responds to certain types of traffic based on geolocation."

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

More Cloudflare pros

"This solution can be used for web , video and media caching and streaming."

"It's a scalable and reliable solution."

"The initial setup is simple, especially for SaaS solutions."

"All the policies of the CDNs are very beneficial."

"Akamai's scalability is good."

"The solution's most valuable feature is that it has been quite helpful in our company, especially when it comes to applications needing updates frequently."

"Akamai has a very established network of PoPs globally."

"The most valuable feature in managing web traffic has been the ability to handle vertical scaling effectively."

More Akamai pros

"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."

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

"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that one can access Windows Azure CDN from anywhere."

"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."

"I like that CDN offers a routing feature."

"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."

More Windows Azure CDN pros

Cons

"There are some issues with the CDN services."

"Sometimes their more advanced caching tools can cause higher first-byte times and problems with JavaScript."

"Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to buy Cloudflare in my country."

"It would be helpful if the solution could continue evolving to compete with the other solutions on the market."

"The solution could be more user-friendly."

"There should be a specific price list for enterprise-level customers."

"One area of improvement is in the Access Rules. Hypothetically, if we wanted to block or challenge traffic outside of the United States, the only way to currently do that (as far as I know) is to enter every single country outside of the United States. That could be a labor intensive job. A solution could be to enable users to create a rule where traffic is only allowed within a certain country."

"The integration of LLMs on the dashboard is something that is needed in the tool."

More Cloudflare cons

"Akamai's configuration part is an area of concern where improvements are required to make the process easy."

"When we open tickets, we have a delay in response times."

"Caching strategy is an area with certain shortcomings in the solution where improvements are required."

"Local connectivity would be great linked to our own telecom/Cablevision CDN."

"One area for improvement with Akamai could be pricing."

"Akamai could improve by providing its own cloud services. We have to use third-party cloud services at this time, such as Amazon AWS. The offering becomes a lot easier for an SMB if everything was in one single platform to be used for the services."

"Sometimes a little hard to navigate around the user console."

"I'd like to see improvements in log files and data visualizations within the interface."

More Akamai cons

"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."

"I aim to enhance the reporting."

"Windows Azure CDN should lower its prices."

"Azure is continuously improving its CDN but the documentation should be up-to-date."

"The solution’s pricing could be improved."

"We have experienced issues with switch connectivity."

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

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

More Windows Azure CDN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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."

"We are using the free version."

"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."

"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 product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."

"The product's pricing is cheap."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"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."

"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."

"It is an expensive product. The licensing costs for the solution are based on the usage. If we need premium support, we need to buy it from Akamai."

"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 solution's pricing is based on bandwidth."

"The price of the solution depends upon its usage."

"The solution can be one of the more expensive options, reflecting their established market position."

"Akamai is an expensive tool. Moreover, we have a pay-as-you-go model for additional features."

More Akamai pricing and cost advice

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

"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."

"It comes at a relatively affordable cost."

"The tool's pricing is cheap."

More Windows Azure CDN pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user69348

Partner at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

21%

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

25%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

36%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

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...

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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 do you like most about Akamai?

The most valuable feature in managing web traffic has been the ability to handle vertical scaling effectively.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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....

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

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Amazon Route 53 vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

Imperva DDoS vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

Azure Front Door vs Akamai

Compared 22% of the time

Imperva DDoS vs Akamai

Compared 14% of the time

Fastly vs Akamai

Compared 6% of the time

Amazon CloudFront vs Akamai

Compared 5% of the time

Edgio vs Akamai

Compared 3% of the time

More Akamai Competitors

Edgio vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 20% of the time

Amazon CloudFront vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 16% of the time

Fastly vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 8% of the time

StackPath CDN vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 5% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 5% of the time

More Windows Azure CDN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

March 2025

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

Akamai

March 2025

Download Akamai product report

Buyer's Guide

CDN

March 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

Akamai is a powerful solution that aims to enhance the performance and reliability of websites and applications. With features like excellent performance, robust security measures, and efficient content delivery, it optimizes user experience. It also offers bandwidth optimization, caching, online asset security, and protection against DDoS attacks. Users value its wide network coverage and reliable customer support.

Akamai

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.

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

NORAD, Agreeya Mobility

Buyer's Guide

Akamai vs. Windows Azure CDN

March 2025

Free Report: Akamai vs. Windows Azure CDN

Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai vs. Windows Azure CDN and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.

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