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Azure Front Door vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

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
6.7
Businesses see financial benefits from Cloudflare through improved uptime, security, and performance, enhancing returns despite measurement challenges.
Sentiment score
7.6
Users report ROI with Azure Front Door due to cost reductions, ease of use, and streamlined routing policies on one platform.
Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway saves time and costs by managing infrastructure, offering up to 40% savings on projects.
You would only lose money if you had an attack and you need to calculate the cost against the risks.
WordPress security can be tricky, and that's where Cloudflare can be absolutely helpful for small businesses.
We have had ROI with the tool's use since it never gave us downtime and made us lose millions.
We have seen a return on investment in terms of time-saving and cost-saving by not creating our own infrastructure.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Customer service is highly rated, especially for Enterprise plans, but response times could improve for complex issues.
Sentiment score
6.9
Azure Front Door's customer service is praised for knowledgeable support, timely responses, and excellent documentation aiding user understanding.
Sentiment score
6.1
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway's customer service feedback varies, ranging from responsive and effective to slow with inconsistent expertise.
This would help us address issues promptly, especially during unforeseen events like DDoS attacks.
We'd like a dedicated account manager.
You can get a support engineer with the best qualifications.
There is room for improvement, specifically in paid support, by providing more direct contact.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Cloudflare is highly regarded for its scalability, smoothly accommodating various user needs and handling significant traffic across business sizes.
Sentiment score
7.9
Azure Front Door offers enterprise-level scalability, supporting global operations and seamless maintenance, earning high user ratings for performance.
Sentiment score
7.4
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is generally praised for scalability and auto-scaling, though some experience challenges with significant scale-ups.
I would rate the solution's scalability a ten out of ten since I didn't encounter any issues with it.
I rate its scalability a ten out of ten because I had no issues with it.
I rate the scalability a ten out of ten.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Cloudflare is generally praised for stability and reliability, despite occasional issues and past outages, requiring proper configuration for best performance.
Sentiment score
8.4
Azure Front Door is reliable and robust with minimal availability issues, though DNS record setup can occasionally be problematic.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is stable and reliable, though some users report minor issues requiring experience for optimal management.
For DDoS protection, I would not recommend Cloudflare.
I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.
I rate Cloudflare eight out of 10 for stability.
 

Room For Improvement

Users suggest Cloudflare improve analytics, CDN errors, support, DNS, APIs, pricing, server access, DDoS features, and documentation.
Azure Front Door needs better compatibility, competitive pricing, enhanced features, improved performance, and more comprehensive updates for wider adoption.
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway requires better pricing, integration, ease of use, documentation, support, and enhanced features for scalability and security.
There's a need for improvement in areas like AI-based DDoS attacks and Layer 7 WAF features.
Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor.
Compared to other vendors and Cloudflare, there will be more downtime.
There is room for improvement in terms of support, such as assigning agents directly for more straightforward engagement.
 

Setup Cost

Cloudflare provides free and paid plans from $20, with straightforward pricing catering to small, medium, and enterprise businesses.
Azure Front Door offers cost-effective, scalable solutions with affordable licensing, though premium tiers have higher expenses for added features.
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway's cost is mixed, valued for integration but often seen as pricey, averaging a seven rating.
That's where Cloudflare shines for smaller businesses – it's ten times cheaper than Akamai.
It is cheaper than other options.
It's cost-effective, but I think they should have a custom pricing model for enterprise customers based on the features you use.
Azure solutions are quite expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Cloudflare provides speed enhancement, security, and ease of use with CDN, DDoS protection, SSL, and traffic analytics for website optimization.
Azure Front Door offers traffic inspection, SSL offloading, scalability, easy setup, affordability, WAF, load balancing, and global resource implementation.
Microsoft Azure Application Gateway offers Layer 7 management, WAF security, API-based routing, easy integration, and cost-efficient performance.
Our scenario consisted of two web servers in different allocations to control access demands, and the load balancer did the job as expected, bringing security and stability to access points.
For me, the valuable feature is DDoS protection.
The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security.
We are using it for some of the security features for our applications, particularly for securing traffic in transit with SSL.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th)
Azure Front Door
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
CDN (3rd), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (12th), Microsoft Security Suite (16th)
Microsoft Azure Application...
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (4th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (3rd)
 

Q&A Highlights

NC
Nov 07, 2021
 

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.
Thomas Zebar - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides great security with a good application firewall
The initial setup is straightforward. If you want to use the portal, CLI, or PowerShare, or you want to use automation data for one month, it's straightforward. Even when it comes to operational maintenance, it's pretty easy and straightforward. Microsoft has done a great job on that front. Maintenance generally requires someone who is a cloud administrator or similar to maintain services in general, with Front Door a small piece of a larger maintenance requirement. There's not a lot to manage, the configuration is simple. I encourage people to document the configuration and infrastructure as well as disaster recovery in case anything happens.
Shehzad Ali - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers time and cost savings with integration, but user interface needs improvement
We are using it for our internal application development. We are testing those features of application gateways. We are integrating it with our solutions, application, Azure Application Gateway Microsoft has a vast variety of tools, and it blends very well. It provides a range of services, so it…
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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.
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Front Door?
It's a matter of value versus price. If we add more features and raise the price, it must remain justifiable. If we m...
How does AWS WAF compare to Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon’s Web Service Web Application Firewall or Microsoft...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?
Application Gateway automatically redirects unwanted users and takes care of the security aspect. It also handles the...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?
Azure solutions are quite expensive. Most services are on a yearly basis. As for pricing, I rate it as nine out of te...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
Azure Front-Door
Azure Application Gateway, MS Azure Application Gateway
 

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.
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Lilly, AccuWeather, AIRFRANCE, Honeywell
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Front Door vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.