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

Amazon CloudFront vs Windows Azure CDN comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Ranking in CDN
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
71
Ranking in other categories
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th)
Amazon CloudFront
Ranking in CDN
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Windows Azure CDN
Ranking in CDN
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 22.2%, up from 20.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon CloudFront is 9.6%, down from 12.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Windows Azure CDN is 2.7%, up from 2.4% 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.
XYX ABC - PeerSpot reviewer
Top-notch in terms of customer service and offers pay-as-you-go model with a free tier
With a mixed stack, things become a problem. With GCP and Azure, the DNS setup gets tricky when using CloudFront. With AWS, it's smooth and streamlined. Their GUI provides all the details and is very easy to navigate. The challenge starts to occur because AWS gives you only one DNS endpoint for the entire service. This single endpoint covers your CDN, AWS server, and domain migration needs. If you use any other solution like GCP or Azure, you face additional configuration changes and account management. You need separate accounts for AWS CloudFront and your chosen platform, like GCP. This means securing and managing two separate accounts – an extra responsibility. With Cloudflare, you just need one account and pay for it. Managing the complex DNS details isn't your burden. However, on the flip side, CloudFront might require more hands-on management on your part.
Nikola Svabic - PeerSpot reviewer
Improves security and has geolocation feature
Windows Azure CDN's deployment is very easy. However, if you are setting everything up at a company level, you need to adapt to many things, so it would take considerable time to make everything functional again. Similarly, transferring from on-premise to the cloud will take some time. It depends on the case, but you cannot set it up in just a few days.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its ease of integration with Office 365 and the fact that it's a good product compared to what I had before"
"Cloudflare has many features."
"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."
"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."
"It is a stable solution. I rate the stability a ten out of ten...I rate the scalability a ten out of ten."
"There are key things that are used for our enterprise customers, such as Lambda and DNS."
"I rate its stability a ten out of ten."
"The attacker won't have details since my public IP is anonymous. It offers us good privacy."
"If you're using AWS entirely, it's smooth sailing."
"It has built-in DDoS protection, which protects against DDoS attacks."
"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."
"One of the most valuable features of CloudFront is the reduced latency due to its edge locations, which results in a very fast delivery of data."
"The speed and usability of the solution are valuable."
"The most valuable feature is the number of servers they can put your content in while being reliable."
"The most beneficial feature is capturing the static data, which is crucial for our operations."
"Edge configuration and availability are vital features for easy content drop-off requests"
"The UI is very intuitive."
"We use the product for faster content delivery with low latency."
"It is a stable solution."
"I like that CDN offers a routing feature."
"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."
"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 fact that it just delivers what it is supposed to do is its most valuable feature...The initial setup is very straightforward."
"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."
 

Cons

"The product support needs to be accessible from more places, a wider area of coverage."
"I think the APIs are a little bit hard for us to work with. The APIs could be more open so that we could integrate better with our SolarWinds or our monitoring solution."
"It should confirm audit findings of the assigned area with auditees to ensure that the audit conclusions are based on an accurate understanding of the issues."
"The solution could use more analytics on the backend to give us more insights into everything. More reports would be helpful."
"It should have easier documentation for the configuration. It's very technical and people who aren't technical should also be able to do the configuration."
"The timing aspect can lead to it being considered overpriced. This is a particular concern we have with Cloudflare, as they may struggle with accurately detecting the client."
"There should be a specific price list for enterprise-level customers."
"An integrated SSO feature would be useful for Cloudflare DNS."
"The user interface could be improved."
"A lot of caching features must be added to the solution."
"With a mixed stack, things become a problem. With GCP and Azure, the DNS setup gets tricky when using CloudFront."
"They could be expanding the number of locations available. It will help users easily access content."
"The tool must provide regional control."
"There is a bit of a workaround required for custom domain management on CloudFront."
"The lack of seamless integration made the setup process more complex and required additional research to manage all the services properly."
"Amazon CloudFront's setup is a bit difficult, and we would love it if they made it easier."
"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."
"There were a few bugs that were very disappointing. So, that is a part of the reason why we started using Fastly."
"The high price of Windows Azure CDN is an area of concern where improvements can be made."
"We have experienced issues with switch connectivity."
"They should include configuration for cache rules."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"Windows Azure CDN should lower its prices."
"Exploring shared access solutions with cloud accounts would be a beneficial choice."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."
"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"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 cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."
"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."
"A free version of the solution is available."
"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."
"Amazon CloudFront costs less than third-party services."
"Compared to competitors like Azure and Google, we find AWS pricing to be advantageous."
"The tool is affordable."
"I rate the product's pricing an eight out of ten. The licensing follows a pay-as-you-go model."
"The solution’s price is reasonable."
"Amazon CloudFront is an expensive solution."
"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 Amazon CloudFront's pricing a five out of ten."
"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."
"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."
"The tool's pricing is cheap."
"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 solution's price is above the medium range."
"The pricing is extremely high, almost 9 out of 10."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which CDN solutions are best for your needs.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
25%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
38%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

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

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
No data available
 

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.
Unilever, Spotify, Pinterest, MLB Advanced Media, Foursquare, PBS, Airbnb, Netflix, WIX, Comcast, Automobili Lamborghini, Rovio, Discovery Communications
NORAD, Agreeya Mobility
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon CloudFront vs. Windows Azure CDN and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.