Amazon CloudFront vs Cloudflare vs Windows Azure CDN comparison

Read 75 Cloudflare reviews

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6,782 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Windows Azure CDN

Read 12 Windows Azure CDN reviews

958 Views
831 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Amazon CloudFront

Windows Azure CDN

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Amazon CloudFront, Cloudflare, and Windows Azure CDN based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare, Microsoft, Akamai and others in CDN.

To learn more, read our detailed CDN Report (Updated: April 2025).

CDN

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Helped 848,989 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:

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Amazon CloudFront is 8.3%, down from 11.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cloudflare is 22.7%, up from 21.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Windows Azure CDN is 3.1%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

CDN

Featured Reviews

Parth Buch

Infrastructure Architecture at Capgemini

Seamlessly manages security and dynamic content hosting in diverse applications

Hosting static content or with engineering dynamic content is beneficial. CloudFront provides a common access point, manages routing to different methods, and serves as an access point plus API routing. With AWS, maintenance is not required as it's a service offered by AWS which maintains itself. Security concerns are manageable through AWS's security mechanisms, with additional security enhancement possible through options like WAF and NACL.

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

Spencer Malmad

Owner at Tech Exchange

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.

Helps to handle edge cases and has purge features

Muhammad ZaheerNazir

Team Lead and Solutions Architect at Systems Arabia

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 Amazon CloudFront pros

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most beneficial feature is capturing the static data, which is crucial for our operations."

"The solution improves performance by reducing latency and cost."

"Its main advantage is that it offers something in this region that wasn't available before; previously, you had to go outside of the region to get the same level of service that you can now access right here in Bahrain. It's truly incredible. Building this IX has significantly changed how traffic is handled. The technical support is good. The initial setup is very straightforward. I rate the solution a perfect ten."

"Amazon CloudFront provides valuable security by ensuring secure file access when accessing files from S3."

"The solution has many features that are comprehensive."

"It is stable."

"The solution makes our platform fully accessible and available globally, helping us to ensure that our customers can rely on it being up and running."

"If you're using AWS entirely, it's smooth sailing."

"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."

"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."

"Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications."

"Smaller businesses have seen great ROI due to the low investment and strong performance."

"The technical support is good."

"The features of Cloudflare were found to be more beneficial and led to the decision to utilize it over other options."

"The solution is stable, and the DNS servers are simple to use."

"New and innovative way to protect the client's data."

More Cloudflare 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."

"It is a stable solution."

"I like that CDN offers a routing feature."

"The UI is very intuitive."

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

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

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

"The fact that it just delivers what it is supposed to do is its most valuable feature...The initial setup is very straightforward."

More Windows Azure CDN pros

Cons

"Support needs to be enhanced."

"Amazon CloudFront is harder to understand compared to Azure."

"The distribution networks need to be a little bit more user-friendly in the way that new users are not able to configure the CloudFront distribution as easily as experienced users."

"Amazon CloudFront could improve by making it easier to integrate with components from different cloud providers."

"Sometimes, the server goes down automatically."

"I have utilized certain characteristics and invested effort in reading the documentation, which proved to be challenging."

"The tool must provide regional control."

"The solution could be more simplified for new users. It could be more user-friendly."

More Amazon CloudFront cons

"If they improve on the placement of their data centers, it would be better. I'm living in a remote area. I would like to connect to them without any kind of lag."

"The solution could work at being less expensive. It costs a lot to use it."

"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 documentation could improve for Cloudflare DNS."

"There could be more courses with engineers. I like e-learning, however, having a specialist in a classroom is more comfortable for me."

"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."

"There might be helpful if there was some web application firewall feature."

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

More Cloudflare cons

"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 aim to enhance the reporting."

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

"Exploring shared access solutions with cloud accounts would be a beneficial choice."

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

"Windows Azure CDN should lower its prices."

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

More Windows Azure CDN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The policies and prices keep on changing frequently with AWS solutions"

"I used to work with AWS and Azure, and we provided cost comparisons for customers to help them choose the right services. Azure tends to be more user-friendly and easier to understand, while AWS may take more time."

"I rate the product's pricing an eight out of ten. The licensing follows a pay-as-you-go model."

"For CloudFront, I'm quite satisfied with the pricing. Initially, it doesn't require many resources for this specific solution."

"The product could improve its price."

"Its price is really on the high side. It should be cheaper in general."

"Amazon's pricing varies depending on the data transfer."

"The solution’s price is reasonable."

More Amazon CloudFront pricing and cost advice

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."

"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."

"We are using the free tier of the solution."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

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

"The tool's pricing is cheap."

"It comes at a relatively affordable cost."

"The tool's pricing is cheap."

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

"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 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."

More Windows Azure CDN pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which CDN solutions are best for your needs.

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Comparison Review

it_user68487

Security Expert with 51-200 employees

Nov 6, 2013

CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Web Application Firewall

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How do I choose between AWS Global Accelerator and Amazon CloudFront?

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

22%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

Educational Organization

18%

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

34%

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon’s Web Service Global Accelerator or Amazon CloudFro...

What do you like most about Amazon CloudFront?

The solution has good security features.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon CloudFront?

I find Amazon's pricing good, rating it eight out of ten and considering it affordable and rightly placed, not expens...

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 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...

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...

What needs improvement with Windows Azure CDN?

Windows Azure CDN should lower its prices.

Azure Front Door vs Amazon CloudFront

Comparisons

Compared 60% of the time

Akamai vs Amazon CloudFront

Compared 10% of the time

AWS Global Accelerator vs Amazon CloudFront

Compared 3% of the time

AWS WAF vs Amazon CloudFront

Compared 3% of the time

Fastly vs Amazon CloudFront

Compared 2% of the time

More Amazon CloudFront Competitors

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 50% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Amazon Route 53 vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

Akamai vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 27% of the time

Edgio vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 21% of the time

Fastly vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 8% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 4% of the time

More Windows Azure CDN Competitors

Product Reports

Amazon CloudFront

Download Amazon CloudFront product report

Download Cloudflare product report

CDN

Download Windows Azure CDN product report

Also Known As

No data available

Cloudflare DNS

No data available

Overview

Amazon CloudFront is a global content delivery network (CDN) service that accelerates delivery of your websites, APIs, video content or other web assets. It integrates with other Amazon Web Services products to give developers and businesses an easy way to accelerate content to end users with no minimum usage commitments. Amazon CloudFront can be used to deliver your entire website, including dynamic, static, streaming, and interactive content using a global network of edge locations. Requests for your content are automatically routed to the nearest edge location, so content is delivered with the best possible performance. Amazon CloudFront is optimized to work with other Amazon Web Services, like Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Elastic Load Balancing, and Amazon Route 53. Amazon CloudFront also works seamlessly with any non-AWS origin server, which stores the original, definitive versions of your files. Like other Amazon Web Services products, there are no long-term contracts or minimum monthly usage commitments for using Amazon CloudFront – you pay only for as much or as little content as you actually deliver through the content delivery service.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

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