Azure DDoS Protection vs Cloudflare One comparison

Microsoft and Cloudflare are both solutions in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category. Microsoft is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.3, while Cloudflare is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.7. Microsoft holds a 4.1% mindshare in DDOS, compared to Cloudflare’s 4.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Cloudflare users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 16, 2025

Azure DDoS Protection and Cloudflare One compete in cloud security, with Azure preferred for integration with the Azure ecosystem, while Cloudflare is favored for its comprehensive feature set and simplicity in configuration.

Features: Azure integrates well with other Azure tools like Firewall and Front Door and offers strong defense against DDoS attacks with scalable solutions. Cloudflare highlights include an advanced rate-limiting feature, integration of WAF, CDN, and zero-trust solutions, all managed through a single console.

Room for Improvement: Azure needs to improve reporting and visibility of metrics and optimize resource consumption to avoid bandwidth issues. Users also desire better configuration experiences. Cloudflare's onboarding process can be initially confusing, WAF rules lack depth, and the company should aim to enhance pricing transparency and support response times.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Azure allows seamless deployment within its cloud infrastructure, though customer service depends on support tiers and sometimes encounters delays. Cloudflare provides straightforward deployment backed by good documentation, though initial setups may challenge some users and could benefit from improved customer engagement.

Pricing and ROI: Azure suits organizations with large public IP needs, offering cost-effective coverage through subscriptions, though its higher costs are challenging for smaller firms. Cloudflare is generally seen as affordable with competitive licensing and transparent pricing, although setup costs for large deployments can be high. Both show good ROI potential, with Cloudflare standing out for budget-conscious users.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure DDoS Protection vs. Cloudflare One Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Azure DDoS Protection vs. Cloudflare One

March 2025

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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 Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 18.9%, down from 19.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure DDoS Protection is 4.1%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cloudflare One is 4.2%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

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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Venkat Raju Mallipudi

Group Chief of Enterprise Architecture & S/W Engineering/ CTO at Aventra Group

Acts as an additional layer of protection, provides endpoint security but not very easy to configure

It's not very easy to configure, in my view. We have to do some work behind the scenes. It's not very simple. We have to do it very carefully, and we need to monitor this enablement as well. But apart from that, I didn't see any kind of challenges. So, in my opinion, configuration is the main trouble for them. It is something that can be done to be better. Not just configuration. You need an expert who knows the ins and outs of these security solutions. In my experience, people struggle with configuration. While configuring, we get this error, we get that error, and then we try to fix those issues. I have seen those. It's not straightforward.

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Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch

Engineer at SITMEXICO

The solution enables seamless security management and fosters a learning environment

Feedback could be enhanced. While I work efficiently with Clover as a partner in Mexico City, sometimes the information and requests are easier to manage with more concrete solutions. For the solution stopping us for e-learning, I appreciate the concept yet need more resources or courses in Mexico, preferably in Spanish. Certifications are easy, however, I require more real-world environments and instructors.

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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

"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."

"The attacker won't have details since my public IP is anonymous. It offers us good privacy."

"It is a fast and secure DNS."

"The most valuable feature is its usability."

"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."

"The solution is very good at mitigating threats."

"The most valuable feature is its usability."

More Cloudflare pros

"This solution is the best option for us because we use a lot of Microsoft products. So, it is easy for us to deploy or integrate any features or products."

"Azure DDoS Protection offers superior protection against denial-of-service attacks."

"Azure is easy to set up and widely used by our clients."

"The most valuable feature of Azure DDoS Protection is that it performs well."

"Azure is easy to set up and widely used by our clients."

"AI capabilities are very good. I would rate them an eight out of ten."

"The integration of various tools with Azure Firewall, like DDoS Protection, Web Application Firewall, and Azure Front Door, is quite effective."

More Azure DDoS Protection pros

"Cloudflare DDoS is better than its competitors for its security, deployment, and scalability."

"Cloudflare is by far the most effective solution that I have come across."

"For Cloudflare Access, I am using the free plan...The most valuable feature is their protection."

"The simplicity of the solution is its valuable features as almost no effort was needed to learn the configurations. It is also one of the cheapest firewalls available in this category."

"It is a stable solution."

"The capabilities of the software are strong enough for me to do what it's supposed to do. For me, we don't need to do a lot of configuration on our site. We just enable it and monitor it."

"I'm very satisfied with the environment and the dashboard."

"The blocking feature is very good."

More Cloudflare One pros

Cons

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

"It should be easier to collect the logs with companies like Sumo. However, based on my discussions with the salespeople, I understand that's how they make their money. With the enterprise product, they want people doing those kinds of enterprise features to do the logging. They want them to pay a lot of money, and that's where I have an issue with them. That should be a default. You should be able to get the log no matter what. The logging should be universal."

"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."

"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."

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

"We are a product integrator and reseller, and we would like to have a better partner relationship, similar to a channel sales relationship. Sometimes we are on our own or get diverted by Cloudflare because they have direct sales, which competes with us and makes it difficult to build a relationship with this company since we want to be an MSP or a managed service provider for the solution."

"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."

More Cloudflare cons

"It's not very easy to configure, in my view."

"Azure DDoS Protection could improve on the reporting."

"The visibility could be better. We would like to have better metrics, so we could see all the information in a central place."

"The dashboard lacks insights and user-friendliness, as most data is logged into metrics like Log Analytics workspaces."

"Sometimes, it is hard for our staff to keep track of changes (in the GUI) between different projects, because there are constant changes. As a result, it is hard to manage, recall, and see all the features because they have been moved from one place to another."

"I suggest adding more services and additional services, which would be beneficial."

"The implementation of Azure DDoS Protection results in a decrease in our bandwidth capacity and should be optimized to reduce resource consumption."

"I have noticed some false positives with the Web Application Firewall yet not with DDoS Protection."

"The onboarding process can be improved a little bit."

"The response time for support must be reduced."

"Cloudflare DDoS has poor technical support."

"Our subscription plan for the solution has a limitation of bot signatures."

"The tool should provide on-premise versions. Currently, all versions are cloud-based."

"Operating and tuning the product is difficult."

"Feedback could be enhanced."

"There are premium tier live service and lower tier live service, so we opted for the lower tier. But there is no medium tier where we pay a little extra and get a bit more service. So if that can be improved."

More Cloudflare One cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."

"We are using the free version."

"In terms of licensing costs, we don't pay for licensing for Cloudflare. We only establish communication, then for peering, Cloudflare takes care of the cross-connection in different data centers."

"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."

"The price is reasonable."

"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."

"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."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"It is an expensive solution."

"You can test it for a certain period of time free of charge. You can have a free account. You can test it to compare its pros and cons with other products that you are testing."

"The prices are slightly expensive."

"The pricing of the solution is cheap. The licensing cost is also very low. I rate the cost and pricing a three out of ten."

"The pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."

"The price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."

"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."

"My company has to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution. There are no hidden charges apart from the licensing costs of the solution."

"The solution is not that expensive."

"The solution's pricing lacks transparency."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

21%

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

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.

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What do you like most about Azure DDoS Protection?

Azure DDoS Protection offers superior protection against denial-of-service attacks.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure DDoS Protection?

The pricing is somewhat costly, usually around $3,000 to $4,000 per month. Managing this expense is tough, especially...

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What needs improvement with Azure DDoS Protection?

The dashboard lacks insights and user-friendliness, as most data is logged into metrics like Log Analytics workspaces...

See all answers

What do you like most about Cloudflare Access?

The tool also offers good scalability, and the dashboard, along with real-time analytics, is very good.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare Access?

The price of Cloudflare Access is the same as compared to Akamai, but I get better performance from Cloudflare. My co...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Access?

Cloudflare Access has strong integration with Microsoft, among other platforms. However, when it comes to Kaspersky, ...

See all answers

Comparisons

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 4% of the time

Amazon Route 53 vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

AWS Shield vs Azure DDoS Protection

Compared 27% of the time

Azure Firewall vs Azure DDoS Protection

Compared 11% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Azure DDoS Protection

Compared 10% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Azure DDoS Protection

Compared 8% of the time

Arbor DDoS vs Azure DDoS Protection

Compared 7% of the time

More Azure DDoS Protection Competitors

Twingate vs Cloudflare One

Compared 11% of the time

AWS Shield vs Cloudflare One

Compared 8% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Cloudflare One

Compared 7% of the time

Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs Cloudflare One

Compared 7% of the time

Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform vs Cloudflare One

Compared 5% of the time

More Cloudflare One Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

March 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Azure DDoS Protection

March 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare One

March 2025

Download Cloudflare One product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

No data available

Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Cloudflare Bot Management, Cloudflare Gateway, Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform, Cloudflare DDoS, Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform

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

Azure DDoS Protection, combined with application design best practices, provides defense against DDoS attacks.

To learn more about our solution, ask questions, and share feedback, join our Microsoft Security, Compliance and Identity Community.

Microsoft

Cloudflare One is a single-vendor Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) platform that enables Zero Trust security and any-to-any connectivity across enterprise applications, users, devices, and networks. Cloudflare One helps organizations simplify, modernize, and consolidate their IT architecture by converging security and networking services on our single global network and control plane.

Many organizations start by adopting our Security Service Edge (SSE) services — like ZTNA, SWG, CASB, and DLP — to reduce their attack surface, stop threats like phishing and ransomware, protect data, and apply identity-based Zero Trust verification across web, SaaS, and private app environments. Others prioritize simplifying network connectivity across offices, data centers, and cloud environments with our WANaaS.

Every service is available for customers to run in every location across Cloudflare’s global network, which today spans 330+ cities in 120+ countries, so you can scale connectivity with fast, consistent protections everywhere.

Cloudflare

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.

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Buyer's Guide

Azure DDoS Protection vs. Cloudflare One

March 2025

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