Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway comparison

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

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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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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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Sooryanarayan Hegde

Technical Architect at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Easy management and configuration, affordable, and has good features

We use all the features. It is very useful. Using WAF, we can control the WAF rules based on our application requirements. We can control what rules should be used and what should be disabled. The role of the tool is limited to HTTP traffic. It does exactly what it must do. It's a regional service. We know how to use it for DR scenarios. WAF has been the most valuable in protecting applications. We use at least three instances in the back end to give the best performance for our applications. The management and configuration of the solution is quite easy. All certificate renewals are automatically taken care of by Key Vault.

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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"

"Centralized, full-featured DNS."

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

"It's very user-friendly."

"The web application firewall brought us good security and a view of the accesses/blocks of the entire domain and subdomain that were accessed both by region (country) and IPs."

"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."

"We're using dynamic components to build flexible pages to create and manage Git merge requests for code and reviews."

"The DDoS protection is the most valuable aspect of the solution."

More Cloudflare pros

"I'm highly satisfied. It's remarkably user-friendly, enabling me to quickly identify issues, and deploy solutions, and it offers the necessary features."

"The security features are valuable. The particular feature we use is called OWASP."

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

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

"Cloudflare WAF provides protection through rules and functionalities like Cloudflare's SDRAP."

"It is a SaaS solution unlike much of the competition."

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

"We like that there's load balancing, firewall capabilities, DDoS protection, et cetera, all covered by Cloudflare."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pros

"I rate Microsoft Azure Application Gateway's scalability a ten out of ten. My company has more than 1000 users who use it daily."

"The solution's most valuable feature is an HTTP solution and SSL certificate. It is also easy to use."

"It has a filter available, although we are not currently using it because it is not part of our requirements. But it is a good option and when it becomes part of our requirements we will definitely use it."

"We can control what rules should be used and what should be disabled."

"Azure Application Gateway's most valuable feature is ease of use. The configuration is straightforward. It isn't difficult to adjust the size of your instances in the settings. You can do that with a few clicks, and the configuration file is the same way. You can also set rules and policies with minimal time and effort."

"The pricing is quite good."

"We find it valuable because it is compatible with our existing Azure solution."

"Load balancing and web application firewall features are the most valuable."

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway pros

Cons

"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."

"I believe they currently have this feature, but there will most likely be integration with APIs so we can control some features through API."

"The integration of LLMs on the dashboard is something that is needed in the tool."

"There are some issues with the CDN services."

"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."

"The pricing could be improved."

"The product support needs to be accessible from more places, a wider area of coverage."

"Cloudflare could offer a better view or maybe dashboards of the main resources used in the client."

More Cloudflare cons

"A key challenge arises when dealing with numerous integrations with HVAC systems. Depending on the specifics, there might be some configuration mismatches, which necessitate specific support."

"I have experienced some difficulties with Cloudflare's support as a customer based in India."

"The dashboard could be more user-friendly."

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

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

"It would be ideal if the solution offered better log integration and more integration with different platforms."

"The learning curve was steep initially."

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

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall cons

"Application Gateway’s limitation is that the private and the public endpoint cannot use the same port."

"The pricing of the solution is a bit high. The solution should offer different pricing systems."

"The working speed of the solution needs improvement."

"Implementing and standardizing the solution across the IT landscape in a heterogeneous environment is painful."

"It takes a lot of time for a certificate to update in the system. That is a huge drawback, affecting the load-balancing side. And when there are changes to the load balancing, it affects the end-user."

"The solution should provide more security for certificate-based services so that we can implement more security on that."

"The configuration is very specific right now and needs to be much more flexible."

"The solution needs improvements in integrating different services and creating a better application balance."

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I give the price a five out of ten."

"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."

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

"We are using the free version."

"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."

"The pricing for the service is reasonable, neither excessively cheap nor prohibitively expensive. It aligns well with the value of their solution."

"The product's pricing is cheap."

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

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I believe the pricing is not the best, but it's reasonable and acceptable. We also use the McAfee system in parallel. In terms of pricing, its okay - not great, but not bad either. It falls in the middle, which is acceptable. In terms of support licensing, last time, we were searching for a solution, and we considered products from resellers rather than directly from the cloud provider. However, the pricing we encountered was exceptionally high. As a result, we are inclined to select support from the reseller."

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

"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."

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

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

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

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

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

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

"The solution is reasonably priced compared to other solutions."

"Every solution comes with a license and cost. Microsoft provides the license and the total cost is for the maintenance every year."

"The solution is cheaper than Imperva. I rate it four to five out of ten."

"I would rate the pricing a three out of ten, with ten being cheap and one being expensive."

"The solution's pricing is not complex. It is not expensive from our point of view."

"We use the tool's basic subscription. Its licensing costs are monthly."

"The tool's pricing model is pay-as-you-go."

"The cost is not an issue."

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions are best for your needs.

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831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

25%

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

28%

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

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...

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 do you like most about Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

The product has a valuable security control functionality.

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.

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

The rate limiting functionality could be enhanced, as we find it somewhat limited.

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...

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...

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 49% of the time

Compared 4% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

AWS Shield vs Cloudflare

Compared 1% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

AWS WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 15% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 13% of the time

Akamai App and API Protector vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 13% of the time

Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 7% of the time

Radware Cloud WAF Service vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 4% of the time

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall Competitors

F5 Advanced WAF vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 14% of the time

AWS WAF vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 10% of the time

HAProxy vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 9% of the time

NetScaler vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 9% of the time

Imperva Web Application Firewall vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 7% of the time

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Competitors

Product Reports

Cloudflare

Download Cloudflare product report

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Download Cloudflare Web Application Firewall product report

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Download Microsoft Azure Application Gateway product report

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

Cloudflare WAF

Azure Application Gateway, MS Azure Application Gateway

Learn More

Cloudflare

Microsoft

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 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.

Azure Application Gateway is a web traffic load balancer that enables you to manage traffic to your web applications. Traditional load balancers operate at the transport layer (OSI layer 4 - TCP and UDP) and route traffic based on source IP address and port, to a destination IP address and port.

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

Sample Customers

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

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk

Lilly, AccuWeather, AIRFRANCE, Honeywell

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway