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Amazon CloudFront vs Windows Azure CDN comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
74
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
34
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 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 Amazon CloudFront is 8.5%, down from 11.8% 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 - 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.
Parth Buch - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Muhammad ZaheerNazir - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

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 DNS is security."
"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."
"We're using dynamic components to build flexible pages to create and manage Git merge requests for code and reviews."
"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."
"Even when there is a high load on our servers, Cloudflare is able to cache the data and serve it to users, ensuring they can still access the website."
"New and innovative way to protect the client's data."
"The technical support is good."
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is its global reach and it is always evolving."
"The most valuable feature is the number of servers they can put your content in while being reliable."
"The speed and usability of the solution are valuable."
"We can personalize a lot of things inside CDN."
"The AWS environment was very helpful in terms of integration."
"The distribution aspect of CloudFront and its ability to reduce latency are most beneficial."
"Feature-wise, I like the solution's signed URL because it provides security for me."
"The product is very well interconnected with other Amazon services."
"The solution has good security features."
"We use the product for faster content delivery with low latency."
"I like that CDN offers a routing feature."
"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."
"The UI is very intuitive."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"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."
"Support response time could be improved."
"In the last two years, there has been a certain amount of downtime when using the VDM."
"Cloudflare does not have an on-premise solution. If they had different approaches they could be better suited to accommodate more customers, such as on-premise and hybrid deployments. For example, hybrid deployments would be useful where you could move the traffic from the enterprise to the cloud."
"I believe they currently have this feature, but there will most likely be integration with APIs so we can control some features through API."
"I would like Cloudflare to offer a dedicated account manager for large enterprise clients like us."
"Cloudflare's console should be made more user-friendly."
"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."
"They could be expanding the number of locations available. It will help users easily access content."
"The solution could be more simplified for new users. It could be more user-friendly."
"AWS is redesigning its user interface and user experience for CloudFront, and there is room for improvement in certificate management."
"They should have more Edge locations so that CloudFront can be used much more. If they can make it a little bit cheaper and better than other networks, we will be able to use it more."
"Amazon CloudFront is harder to understand compared to Azure."
"The lack of seamless integration made the setup process more complex and required additional research to manage all the services properly."
"I would like to see an increase in distribution regions in Africa. There are currently only a few regions available."
"The product should be more intuitive."
"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."
"Windows Azure CDN should lower its prices."
"They should include configuration for cache rules."
"The high price of Windows Azure CDN is an area of concern where improvements can be made."
"There were a few bugs that were very disappointing. So, that is a part of the reason why we started using Fastly."
"Azure is continuously improving its CDN but the documentation should be up-to-date."
"Exploring shared access solutions with cloud accounts would be a beneficial choice."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We don't have any issues with the price."
"A free version of the solution is available."
"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."
"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."
"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."
"We are using the free tier of the solution."
"We are using the free version."
"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."
"For CloudFront, I'm quite satisfied with the pricing. Initially, it doesn't require many resources for this specific solution."
"Amazon CloudFront costs less than third-party services."
"We do not have many options to optimize costs."
"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."
"Compared to competitors like Azure and Google, we find AWS pricing to be advantageous."
"Amazon's pricing varies depending on the data transfer."
"The solution’s price is reasonable."
"The tool's pricing is cheap."
"It comes at a relatively affordable cost."
"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 pricing is extremely high, almost 9 out of 10."
"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."
"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 tool's pricing is cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
23%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
38%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

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 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...
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
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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: March 2025.
841,004 professionals have used our research since 2012.