Azure Web Application Firewall vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall comparison

Microsoft and Cloudflare are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Microsoft is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.5, while Cloudflare is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.4. Additionally, 92% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Cloudflare users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall and Azure Web Application Firewall compete in the field of web application security solutions. Cloudflare gains an advantage in pricing and support, while Azure is favored for its extensive feature set and integration capabilities.

Features: Cloudflare Web Application Firewall offers ease of configuration, advanced DDoS protection, and robust integration with its Cloud Suite. Azure Web Application Firewall provides deep integration with Azure services, customizable rule sets, and efficient security controls.

Room for Improvement: Cloudflare can enhance its advanced rate-limiting features, improve specific subscription offerings, and expand data center presence further. Azure Web Application Firewall could improve the speed of customer service response times and simplify the complexity of its configuration process for easier adoption.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cloudflare provides a seamless deployment process and responsive technical support, suitable for businesses of any size. Azure's setup can be more complex due to its integration with the Azure ecosystem, sometimes posing challenges but offering a detailed deployment guide.

Pricing and ROI: Cloudflare is known for its cost-effectiveness and straightforward pricing model, often resulting in higher ROI due to ease of deployment and low ongoing costs. Azure, while starting off with a higher investment, provides significant value through its comprehensive security features, beneficial for enterprises needing advanced protection.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Web Application Firewall vs. Cloudflare Web Application Firewall Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Web Application Firewall vs. Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

January 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

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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Mano Senaratne

Management Consultant at a consultancy with 201-500 employees

Comprehensive suite simplifies configuration while frequent updates require management

Mainly, it comes with the complete suite of Microsoft services. I can use it in conjunction with the best options and other features that come with it. Configuration is much easier than using different platforms. For example, if I have hosted the application in AWS and am using the Application Firewall from Azure, there are certain additional steps to follow when configuring them. With Microsoft, everything is within a single suite, making it easier to configure and plan. Azure continually upgrades platforms and sends us messages to upgrade to the next version, simplifying the process. Later, it's much easier if I want to upgrade the software platform, scale it, or move it to a different application host as the whole suite comes together. The return on investment is good. If I am doing applications for clients, I can invoice them for better costs. Most applications that I run and use have a better return on investment.

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SachidDoshi

Senior Enterprise Security Architect at HGS - Hinduja Global Solutions

Offers a huge signature repository and is superiorly effective in mitigating DDoS attacks

The solution's learning curve can still be further reduced, which presently stands at two or three months. The product has a custom rule set that users can modify and manifest as needed. The vendor can probably shorten the learning curve using cutting-edge technologies like AI. The solution provider can also work around the web applications and identify the toolset that needs to be implemented to deploy the solution in less time. The vendor has launched a SASE product that can function with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall, but many improvements are needed in terms of features, such as the web filtering feature, and CASB has not yet been added.

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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

"Its ease of integration with Office 365 and the fact that it's a good product compared to what I had before"

"Cloudflare is a security SaaS provider that provides security and protects us from any application layer attack."

"The solution provides good load balancing and protection against DDoS attacks."

"The most valuable feature is the web application firewall."

"Smaller businesses have seen great ROI due to the low investment and strong performance."

"Generally, I am satisfied with this product."

"When using services like Heroku, Cloudflare is very useful for CNAME flattening. I also use it for their end-to-end SSL with TLS authentication on nginx for securing servers."

"Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications."

More Cloudflare pros

"The most valuable feature of Azure Web Application Firewall is its ability to filter requests and block false positives by using custom rules and the OWASP rule set."

"Configuration is much easier than using different platforms."

"The solution has good dashboards."

"It's great for protecting against DDoS attacks."

"The integration it has with GitHub is great."

"It has been a stable product in my experience."

"Azure WAF is extremely stable."

"It's quite a stable product and works well with Microsoft products."

More Azure Web Application Firewall pros

"It is configurable via API."

"The integration of Cloudflare with Cloud Suite is its most valuable feature."

"Cloudflare is cheaper compared to Azure WAF, which I have considered before."

"It protects web applications efficiently."

"Does a good job preventing web application attacks."

"The product has improved our security posture by blocking bad actors."

"The product has a valuable security control functionality."

"Someone with a basic understanding of networking and security will be able to implement the firewall's basic features within 15 minutes."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pros

Cons

"Cloudflare's console should be made more user-friendly."

"The product needs to improve its automation."

"If they improve on the placement of their data centers, it would be better. I'm living in a remote area. I would like to connect to them without any kind of lag."

"Cloudflare doesn't have a reverse lookup. We can only do a DNS lookup to get the IP address from the hostname. It doesn't work if you want to look up the hostname from an IPA address."

"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."

"The solution could use more analytics on the backend to give us more insights into everything. More reports would be helpful."

"Areas like how assessment, discovery, and payload are dealt with and how it all comes into your organization can be considered when trying to make suggestions to Cloudflare for improvements."

"The tool needs to improve caching of servers. The product needs to include PFX certificate as well."

More Cloudflare cons

"From my point of view, there is no need for improvement."

"Upgrading the platform regularly is necessary for security, however, frequent updates every six months or year from Azure can be a maintenance overhead."

"I would say that Azure's customer service is not that good...I am not very happy with the support offered."

"We would like to see additional site services using AI to provide information about blocking requests and offer analytics on the origin of calls."

"From a reporting perspective, they could do more there."

"The management can be improved."

"There is a need to be able to configure the solution more."

"The knowledge base could be improved."

More Azure Web Application Firewall cons

"The notification part could be improved. It's very much connected to Web Application Firewall, rate-limiting, and DDoS protection."

"They have some limitations with third-party integrations."

"If they add logs history within the Cloudflare offering, that would be a great benefit."

"The solution's learning curve can still be further reduced"

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

"The accuracy of the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall could be improved by reducing the number of false-negative alerts."

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should include port forwarding features."

"We have noticed some latency when the call goes through the firewall. That could be improved."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is expensive."

"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."

"The product's pricing is cheap."

"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."

"I believe their performance has improved, but I'd like to refrain from discussing the pricing aspect related to the cloud. The pricing, in my opinion, could be simplified, and I think they should consider reevaluating the pricing for support, as it can be quite high. At times, this cost can make it challenging to choose CARFAGuard or opt for the support."

"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."

"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."

"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."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"I give the pricing a nine out of ten."

"We have an enterprise agreement with Microsoft and the pricing is good."

"The price is reasonable. It is approximately $2,000 US per month."

"Azure WAF has price advantages over other WAF solutions. The pricing model is flexible because you pay on a scale based on the level of protection you need."

"The price is for this solution is fair and there is a license needed."

"The price of the solution depends on your architecture and how you manage it. You can control the cost in Azure quite well. The costs do not directly correlate to expenses in the features we are using."

"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."

"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."

"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."

"The solution is expensive."

"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."

"It is not too pricey."

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."

"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

24%

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

19%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Educational Organization

28%

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

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.

See all answers

What do you like most about Azure Web Application Firewall?

The integration it has with GitHub is great.

See all answers

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

The pricing is okay at the moment. Sometimes, when opting for a higher SKU, it's not the WAF itself that's costly but...

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What needs improvement with Azure Web Application Firewall?

While using it, I identified certain areas where it would have been good to have additional features. Right now, I ca...

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What do you like most about Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

The product has a valuable security control functionality.

See all answers

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

Cloudflare is cheaper compared to Azure WAF, which I have considered before.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

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

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 49% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Amazon Route 53 vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

AWS WAF vs Azure Web Application Firewall

Compared 42% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Azure Web Application Firewall

Compared 12% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Azure Web Application Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

Akamai App and API Protector vs Azure Web Application Firewall

Compared 4% of the time

Azure DDoS Protection vs Azure Web Application Firewall

Compared 2% of the time

More Azure Web Application Firewall Competitors

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 21% of the time

AWS WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 14% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 14% of the time

Akamai App and API Protector vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 11% of the time

Fastly vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 2% of the time

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall Competitors

Product Reports

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Cloudflare

February 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Azure Web Application Firewall

February 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

February 2025

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

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Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

No data available

Cloudflare WAF

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 Web Application Firewall (WAF) provides centralized protection of your web applications from common exploits and vulnerabilities. Web applications are increasingly targeted by malicious attacks that exploit commonly known vulnerabilities. SQL injection and cross-site scripting are among the most common attacks.

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

Microsoft

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

Sample Customers

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

Information Not Available

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk

Buyer's Guide

Azure Web Application Firewall vs. Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

January 2025

Free Report: Azure Web Application Firewall vs. Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

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