Azure Front Door vs F5 Silverline Managed Services comparison

Microsoft and F5 are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Microsoft is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.8, while F5 is ranked #23 with an average rating of 9.0. Microsoft holds a 3.5% mindshare in WAF, compared to F5’s 1.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of F5 users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

F5 Silverline Managed Services and Azure Front Door compete in the content delivery and security space. Azure Front Door is often seen as superior due to its extensive feature set, although F5 Silverline is more preferred for pricing and customer support.

Features: F5 Silverline Managed Services provides robust security with DDoS protection, application traffic monitoring, and policy automation. Azure Front Door offers global load balancing, integrated web application firewall, and advanced traffic management for dynamic acceleration and scalability.

Room for Improvement: F5 Silverline could enhance flexibility in feature integration, broader global traffic capabilities, and improved automation for policy application. Azure Front Door's complexity in setup, less personalized customer support, and higher associated costs are areas that could be refined.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: F5 Silverline Managed Services is straightforward to deploy with exceptional customer service, appealing to companies needing hands-on assistance. Azure Front Door offers deeper integration within the Azure ecosystem but has a more complex setup process and less personalized customer service.

Pricing and ROI: F5 Silverline Managed Services offers competitive pricing with strong ROI by balancing cost and robust support. Azure Front Door, though potentially more expensive, justifies its cost with significant ROI through scalability and integration with a broad range of Azure services.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Front Door vs. F5 Silverline Managed Services Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Front Door vs. F5 Silverline Managed Services

February 2026

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Helped 882,744 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:

ROI

Sentiment score

7.6

Cloudflare WAF offers quick ROI, crucial protection for e-commerce, saves bandwidth, and balances cost with valuable free features.

Sentiment score

6.9

Azure Front Door offers ROI through cost reduction, quick setup, and simplified management, prompting proactive adoption amid system phase-out.

Sentiment score

5.1

F5 Silverline Managed Services provides cost and time savings by replacing in-house cybersecurity, achieving varied ROI for users.

My experience with the pricing or licensing of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is that many features can be accessed for free, so the pricing is definitely reasonable.

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

Azure Front Door offers a quick return on investment once it is set up.

Bernard Parinas

Co-Founder at arpa

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Front Door report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Silverline Managed Services report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.3

Cloudflare WAF support is mixed; responsive for some, but Indian customers face call availability and administrative issues.

Sentiment score

7.1

Azure Front Door's customer service is mixed; some praise responsiveness and documentation, others find problem-solving quality inconsistent.

Sentiment score

6.2

F5 Silverline Managed Services experiences mixed reviews; some praise responsiveness, others criticize inefficiencies and slow issue resolution.

I would rate the technical support with Cloudflare as excellent every time I've had to contact them.

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

The technical support of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall rates between five and seven at maximum.

Avinash Udawant

IT Manager at Amla Commerce

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

I am able to set up a critical call with Microsoft, and they respond quickly to tickets with the highest severity.

Bernard Parinas

Co-Founder at arpa

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Front Door report

Their support team is responsive, and they deliver timely updates, addressing any glitches promptly.

Ricky Makkar

Senior Network Security Consultant at NTT DATA

I think 24/7 expert support and streamlined compliance management definitely benefit my company's security efforts.

Mohan Janarthanan

Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions

Configuration problems largely arise from customer misunderstanding, leading to cases opened for configuration aspects where AI has become increasingly useful.

Mithat Bulut

Network And Security Consultant at TD SYNNEX

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Silverline Managed Services report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.7

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall offers impressive scalability and automated management, but additional features may incur costs for smaller organizations.

Sentiment score

7.1

Azure Front Door offers scalable, reliable global capabilities, highly rated by users, though it may become costly with extensive use.

Sentiment score

7.4

F5 Silverline Managed Services offers scalable solutions with easy upgrades and reliability for both moderate and extensive data demands.

The scalability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall rates between 8 to 9, as it depends upon the use cases and what exactly the client needs.

Avinash Udawant

IT Manager at Amla Commerce

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

I find that Front Door can become expensive for large-scale projects with more transactions and users.

Mohamed Amin Nasri

Azure Consultant at cloudshift

I consider the scalability of Azure Front Door to be strong.

Bernard Parinas

Co-Founder at arpa

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Front Door report

F5 Silverline Managed Services is scalable enough without observed limitations.

Ricky Makkar

Senior Network Security Consultant at NTT DATA

The solution is fully scalable, and I would give it a rating of ten on a scale of one to ten for scalability.

AhmedMansour

Design & Delivery Senior Network Security Architect at Qiddiya Investment Company

F5 Silverline Managed Services is not a concern due to its scalability.

Mohan Janarthanan

Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Silverline Managed Services report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

8.2

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is praised for stability, high performance, effective protection, daily use, and minimal downtime.

Sentiment score

8.4

Azure Front Door is praised for stability and performance, with minor DNS issues and advantages in updates via Azure Portal.

Sentiment score

7.4

F5 Silverline is praised for stability, reliability, high uptime, and effective support, outperforming competitors like Imperva and Akamai.

The stability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall deserves a perfect 10 out of 10.

Avinash Udawant

IT Manager at Amla Commerce

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

I rate Azure Front Door's stability a nine because it is easy to make updates through Azure Portal.

Bernard Parinas

Co-Founder at arpa

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Front Door report

They offer regular updates, and overall, I would rate the stability of the solution as nine out of ten.

Ricky Makkar

Senior Network Security Consultant at NTT DATA

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Silverline Managed Services report

Room For Improvement

Cloudflare WAF needs feature enhancements, better usability, improved support, advanced DDoS protection, and solutions for latency and alerts.

Azure Front Door needs improvements in multi-cloud support, pricing, user interface, DDoS protection, and enhanced functionalities as per feedback.

F5 Silverline Managed Services needs better integration, user interface, and advanced features, with concerns over stability, pricing, and automation.

The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available.

reviewer2012637

Network Architect at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

I think they're doing a good job with DNS and as support for any domains that I create or that my clients create, it's mandatory for me to ensure they have Cloudflare as their DNS provider.

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

And maybe something similar to Pushpin that Fastly has, which is an option where you can push messages that then can be scaled globally over the network.

Dean Barisic

CTO at PlayNirvana

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

If I could use Azure Front Door with private IP addresses, it would be more beneficial.

Mohamed Amin Nasri

Azure Consultant at cloudshift

It relies on the WAF module where users must configure rate-limiting rules, as it does not automatically sense malicious spikes in traffic.

reviewer2226693

Architect at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees

The only significant adjustment required is with URL set parameters that need to be passed for an existing domain.

Bernard Parinas

Co-Founder at arpa

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Front Door report

Introducing preemptive support prompts would reduce the manual effort required for creating policies or blocking specific IPs.

Ricky Makkar

Senior Network Security Consultant at NTT DATA

F5 Silverline Managed Services needs to adapt compliances related to India's DPDP.

Mohan Janarthanan

Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions

Improvements could include the creation of highly optimized profiles.

AhmedMansour

Design & Delivery Senior Network Security Architect at Qiddiya Investment Company

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Silverline Managed Services report

Setup Cost

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall offers affordable, flexible pricing with no upfront costs, noted for competitiveness and included support services.

Azure Front Door offers flexible, tiered pricing praised for balancing cost and features, though premium levels may seem expensive.

F5 Silverline Managed Services offer negotiable pricing, potentially higher than competitors, with additional costs for features like Web Application Firewall.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

Azure Front Door is cheaper for small projects, companies, or applications compared to using separate tools.

Mohamed Amin Nasri

Azure Consultant at cloudshift

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Front Door report

On a scale where ten is very expensive, I would rate the pricing as three.

Ricky Makkar

Senior Network Security Consultant at NTT DATA

The solution is expensive

AhmedMansour

Design & Delivery Senior Network Security Architect at Qiddiya Investment Company

Regarding the pricing of F5 Silverline Managed Services, I would say it is quite affordable.

Mohan Janarthanan

Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Silverline Managed Services report

Valuable Features

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall provides comprehensive security features, easy setup, scalability, and competitive pricing with praised performance and stability.

Azure Front Door enhances security, performance, and global reach with features like SSL offloading, load-balancing, and traffic analytics.

F5 Silverline Managed Services provides advanced security and traffic management with user-friendly features, real-time intelligence, and robust DDoS protection.

The custom rules and the geo-redundant geographical rule feature, which allows me to implement geographical rules for customers, add significant value.

reviewer2012637

Network Architect at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

The best features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall are multiple, including the WAF, rate limiter, and bot attack protection.

Avinash Udawant

IT Manager at Amla Commerce

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools add a layer that we're able to visualize and see before it actually hits the local firewall.

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

Azure Front Door provides DDoS protection and features related to WAF.

Mohamed Amin Nasri

Azure Consultant at cloudshift

Azure Front Door includes a built-in web application firewall, which performs signature-based checks of the request payload, offering protection against common attacks or malicious requests.

Bernard Parinas

Co-Founder at arpa

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Front Door report

It allows for centralized management of certificates, protecting applications from top ten attacks like SQL injection and cross-site scripting.

AhmedMansour

Design & Delivery Senior Network Security Architect at Qiddiya Investment Company

The monitoring tab displays GET and POST requests in a readable format, making it accessible even to non-tech-savvy individuals.

Ricky Makkar

Senior Network Security Consultant at NTT DATA

One part is positive security, which allows you to know vulnerabilities in depth, and you can implement CAPTCHA and MFA for logins, while also preventing known threats with included signatures.

Mithat Bulut

Network And Security Consultant at TD SYNNEX

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Silverline Managed Services report

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare Web Application ...

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 5.6%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure Front Door is 3.5%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Silverline Managed Services is 1.3%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall	5.6%
Azure Front Door	3.5%
F5 Silverline Managed Services	1.3%
Other	89.6%

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

Dean Barisic

CTO at PlayNirvana

Advanced security reporting has protected high-traffic betting platforms from constant attacks

I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we have a dedicated IT team for that, and I'm not involved with Cloudflare much anymore. But if I were to compare them to F5, I would like to see more features that F5 offers. F5 has an option to bring the whole infrastructure, the whole WAF and all their packages, Bot Management, and everything else on your infrastructure. You need to install certain services from their side, and then you can choose if you would like requests to hit your servers immediately or if requests need to be proxied through F5 backbone. That would be a nice addition because we have 90% of the traffic as legit traffic coming from whitelisted servers. If it comes from whitelisted servers, I don't need to go every request through the backbone; I could easily just IP whitelist everything. Then I could maybe have Bot Management on my infrastructure that drastically reduces the price of Cloudflare. I would like to see Push CDN more improved in the next release of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. And maybe something similar to Pushpin that Fastly has, which is an option where you can push messages that then can be scaled globally over the network. From our perspective, if we have a listener that listens for stock updates, I would just need to have one processor that pushes those updates to the Cloudflare API, and then Cloudflare would broadcast that message to all listeners. Cloudflare will check the order of the message, and if you, as a customer, are not connected or have some kind of network issue, when you reconnect, you will receive the latest state and missing updates.

Read full review

reviewer2226693

Architect at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees

Optimizing global application performance with robust security measures and advanced traffic management

DDoS capabilities in Azure Front Door could certainly be improved. Although Microsoft states it comes with basic DDoS protections out of the box, I find it often ineffectual in mitigating thousands of requests from a single source in a short span of time. User then have to rely on the WAF module where users must configure rate-limiting rules, as it does not automatically sense malicious spikes in traffic. I believe Front Door should have an out-of-the-box premium DDoS protection that can automatically detect and block malicious traffic. I would appreciate improvements in the turnaround time for support, especially since issues with Azure Front Door are usually critical for businesses. If there is an issue, it often results in downtime for line of business applications. I have faced this situation multiple times as one of the largest financial institutions in India is hosted there, adhering to strict SLAs that require prompt responses.

Read full review

Mohan Janarthanan

Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions

Cloud applications have gained stronger protection and real-time defense against web attacks

What really stands out for me in terms of advantages of F5 Silverline Managed Services is that in a single cloud platform, I can protect my web applications against attacks. I can also use my load balancer in F5 because they are providing and acting as a load balancer too, and they will support the volumetric and DDoS attacks and malicious attacks. Regarding the real-time threat intelligence feature, I do use this aspect in F5 Silverline Managed Services. It blocks malicious IPs or bad IPs for my server, protecting against my applications. For example, if someone is a bad actor trying to access via a malicious IP, I can block it because the threat intelligence has the capability to block the malicious IP. The adaptable and flexible security impacts threat response time positively. It is effective because it blocks my malicious traffic. Whenever I face issues related to that application, it automatically routes my traffic to act as a proxy and routes my traffic to their scrubbing center, especially in case of any volumetric attack.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

19%

Comms Service Provider

14%

Insurance Company

14%

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	9

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	9

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

The price of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

I don't really use the rule-based logic feature or utilize the WAF's ability to scale as a cloud-based service. I don...

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What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

I'm using Cloudflare Web Application Firewall on all my domains and any client domains I have; I set them up with a C...

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What's the difference between Azure Front Door and Application Gateway?

We found Azure Front Door to be easily scaled and very stable. The implementation is very fast and Microsoft provides...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Front Door?

I am not sure about the pricing but believe Azure Front Door might require a higher cost due to its entry point nature.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Azure Front Door?

DDoS capabilities in Azure Front Door could certainly be improved. Although Microsoft states it comes with basic DDoS...

See all answers

Is Citrix ADC (formerly Netscaler) the best ADC to use and if not why?

For ADC, any ADC can do a good job. But in case if you want to add WAF functionality to the same ADC hardware you hav...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Silverline Managed Services?

The solution is quite reasonably priced, with costs being lower in comparison to competitors. On a scale where ten is...

See all answers

What needs improvement with F5 Silverline Managed Services?

Automating processes could enhance F5 Silverline Managed Services. For example, introducing preemptive support prompt...

See all answers

Comparisons

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 9% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 4% of the time

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall Competitors

Amazon CloudFront vs Azure Front Door

Compared 14% of the time

Cloudflare vs Azure Front Door

Compared 14% of the time

Akamai vs Azure Front Door

Compared 9% of the time

AWS Global Accelerator vs Azure Front Door

Compared 9% of the time

NGINX App Protect vs Azure Front Door

Compared 2% of the time

More Azure Front Door Competitors

F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 14% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 8% of the time

Cloudflare vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 8% of the time

NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 7% of the time

Akamai App and API Protector vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 6% of the time

More F5 Silverline Managed Services Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

February 2026

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

Download Cloudflare Web Application Firewall product report

Buyer's Guide

Azure Front Door

February 2026

Download Azure Front Door product report

Buyer's Guide

F5 Silverline Managed Services

February 2026

Download F5 Silverline Managed Services product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF

Azure Front-Door

F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall, F5 Silverline DDoS Protection

Overview

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's intuitive dashboard enables users to build powerful rules through easy clicks and also provides Terraform integration. Every request to the WAF is inspected against the rule engine and the threat intelligence curated from protecting over 27 Million websites. Suspicious requests can be blocked, challenged or logged as per the needs of the user while legitimate requests are routed to the destination, agnostic of whether it lives on-premise or in the cloud. Analytics and Cloudflare Logs enable visibility into actionable metrics for the user.

Cloudflare

Azure Front Door enhances web application performance and security by leveraging traffic inspection, SSL offloading, and a web application firewall. It enables intelligent routing, load balancing, and global resource deployment while providing essential features for online application security.

Azure Front Door integrates GitOps for seamless deployment, offering significant capabilities in giant networks like CDN functionalities and DDoS protection. Its advanced configurations include traffic analytics and transit layer security. Despite its affordability and scalability, users see room for improvement in global load balancing and private IP address support, citing integration challenges with other cloud vendors. The interface may appear complex, and some users desire more transparent pricing, better DDoS defenses, and enhanced monitoring. This platform is especially beneficial for securing external traffic and optimizing content delivery, providing DNS integration and disaster recovery mechanisms.

What are the key features of Azure Front Door?

Traffic Inspection: Enhances security with comprehensive traffic analysis at the network level.
SSL Offloading: Streamlines SSL certificate management and encryption processes.
Web Application Firewall: Offers protection against web vulnerabilities and threats.
Global Resource Implementation: Facilitates deployment across multiple regions.
Intelligent Routing and Load Balancing: Optimizes traffic distribution for efficient performance.
Bot and DDoS Protection: Shields applications from malicious traffic and attacks.
CDN Capabilities: Accelerates content delivery with local caching and optimized routing.

What benefits and ROI should users expect?

Affordability: Provides robust features at competitive pricing.
Scalability: Adapts easily to growing traffic demands and business needs.
Security: Delivers comprehensive defenses against cyber threats.
Performance Optimization: Enhances application responsiveness and delivery speed.
Global Reach: Supports globally distributed applications with ease.

In industries focusing on online presence and global user engagement, Azure Front Door is invaluable for optimizing web application performance. E-commerce platforms deploy it to secure transactions and enhance load times. Media companies leverage its CDN and security features to ensure seamless content delivery. Enterprises with international operations find it crucial for reliable and secure data access across regions.

Microsoft

F5's Silverline Managed Services is a SaaS solution delivering DDoS protection, managed Web Application Firewall (WAF) services, and managed Shape Security Fraud and Anti-bot solutions.

Silverline services include 24x7 access to F5's Security Operations Center (SOC). F5's expert security professionals use F5 products with state-of-the-art security tools to ensure the best protection possible. As an add-on to Silverline DDoS or WAF services, Silverline Threat Intelligence integrates dynamic lists of threatening IP addresses to give context for policy decisions.

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk

Information Not Available

City Bank, Ricacorp Properties, Miele, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office

Buyer's Guide

Azure Front Door vs. F5 Silverline Managed Services

February 2026

Free Report: Azure Front Door vs. F5 Silverline Managed Services

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