Hive Streaming vs Windows Azure CDN comparison

Hive Streaming and Microsoft are both solutions in the CDN category. Hive Streaming is ranked #12 with an average rating of 10.0, while Microsoft is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.4. Hive Streaming holds a 0.2% mindshare in CDN, compared to Microsoft’s 3.1% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Hive Streaming users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Hive Streaming and Windows Azure CDN based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare, Microsoft, Akamai and others in CDN.

To learn more, read our detailed CDN Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

CDN

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 CDN category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 22.7%, up from 21.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hive Streaming is 0.2%, down from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Windows Azure CDN is 3.1%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

CDN

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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reviewer2231556

R&D Manager of Momindum at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

A stable platform that maximizes the business value of video streaming

Hive Streaming is used as we work with companies that have, most of the time, bad networks. We provide video and live streaming solutions for them. It's like YouTube, but for the enterprise. When the network is not really great, Hive helps to optimize the broadcast The optimization of the network…

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Muhammad ZaheerNazir

Team Lead and Solutions Architect at Systems Arabia

Helps to handle edge cases and has purge features

I believe Windows Azure CDN can improve monitoring and measuring overall end-user performance. Providing monitoring tools or agents that can be integrated into our pages would be highly beneficial. Setting up a custom domain with Windows Azure CDN involves proving domain ownership, which can take some time. The process is relatively straightforward if your DNS or domain registrar is already integrated with Microsoft. However, the verification process may be more time-consuming if you use a different service provider.

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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

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

"The tool is user-friendly."

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is that it has a free version. They give us the free version with the anti-DDoS features and also the load balancing solution."

"It is easier to configure and develop documentation to see how we have configured firewalls."

"Cloudflare DNS is widely used, and it's good for websites. If we use Cloudflare DNS and update one record, it updates in their office instantly."

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is its global reach and it is always evolving."

"The solution is very good at mitigating threats."

"From what I've seen so far, there are no negatives to report as of yet"

More Cloudflare pros

"The optimization of the network is a valuable feature."

"It is a stable solution."

"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that one can access Windows Azure CDN from anywhere."

"One of the tool's best features is its ability to handle edge cases. For instance, we encountered a situation where we needed to remove certain files from public access. The solution offered a purge feature that allowed us to remove these files. This feature ensured that the files were deleted from all edge servers. Subsequently, we were able to upload new versions of the files."

"I enjoy engaging in discussions with colleagues possessing unique expertise. I leverage the three platforms—Azure, Google, and AWS extensively. This allows me to offer diverse solutions to customers, commonly referred to as a multi-cloud approach."

"One of the most valuable aspects is the capability to store extensive datasets and objects in the cloud, enabling their download through shared access signatures."

"The most valuable feature of Windows Azure CDN is its effectiveness."

"I like that CDN offers a routing feature."

"The UI is very intuitive."

More Windows Azure CDN pros

Cons

"We're facing challenges due to an upgrade in the machine learning model. The problem arises from some users abusing the APIs, resulting in an influx of suspicious traffic. Cloudflare's learning model mistakenly identifies this traffic as human. Consequently, it assigns it a higher trust score, akin to legitimate human traffic, causing complications in our architecture. Previously, such traffic would have been categorized as suspicious, enabling us to apply appropriate blocking rules. However, we encounter difficulties distinguishing between genuine and suspicious traffic with the new categorization. Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor."

"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."

"Although I think it's quite good, it doesn't provide me with all the features I would expect to have if I were using Imperva."

"The analytics, basically the dashboard, doesn't have much to it."

"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."

"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."

"Integration involving API with other products could be more user-friendly."

"In the last two years, there has been a certain amount of downtime when using the VDM."

More Cloudflare cons

"Hive should let customers know about the carbon usage."

"Azure is continuously improving its CDN but the documentation should be up-to-date."

"The high price of Windows Azure CDN is an area of concern where improvements can be made."

"The solution’s pricing could be improved."

"Exploring shared access solutions with cloud accounts would be a beneficial choice."

"There were a few bugs that were very disappointing. So, that is a part of the reason why we started using Fastly."

"I aim to enhance the reporting."

"I believe Windows Azure CDN can improve monitoring and measuring overall end-user performance. Providing monitoring tools or agents that can be integrated into our pages would be highly beneficial. Setting up a custom domain with Windows Azure CDN involves proving domain ownership, which can take some time. The process is relatively straightforward if your DNS or domain registrar is already integrated with Microsoft. However, the verification process may be more time-consuming if you use a different service provider."

"Windows Azure CDN should lower its prices."

More Windows Azure CDN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"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."

"We are using the free tier of the solution."

"We don't have any issues with the price."

"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."

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

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

Information not available

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten."

"It comes at a relatively affordable cost."

"The solution's price depends on how much traffic you have. So, it was okay for us. Payments are to be made on a monthly basis since one has to pay for what they used."

"The tool's pricing is cheap."

"The pricing is extremely high, almost 9 out of 10."

"The tool's pricing is cheap."

"I rate the price of Windows Azure CDN a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is high."

"The solution's price is above the medium range."

More Windows Azure CDN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

23%

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

No data available

Educational Organization

38%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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...

See all answers

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 Hive Streaming?

The optimization of the network is a valuable feature.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Hive Streaming?

Hive should let customers know about the carbon usage.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Hive Streaming?

Hive Streaming is used as we work with companies that have, most of the time, bad networks. We provide video and live...

See all answers

What do you like most about Windows Azure CDN?

One of the tool's best features is its ability to handle edge cases. For instance, we encountered a situation where w...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Windows Azure CDN?

The pricing of the solution depends on usage and varies based on the company's needs. If you want additional features...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Windows Azure CDN?

Windows Azure CDN should lower its prices.

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

Kollective vs Hive Streaming

Compared 100% of the time

More Hive Streaming Competitors

Akamai vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 24% of the time

Edgio vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 19% of the time

Amazon CloudFront vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 16% of the time

Fastly vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 8% of the time

StackPath CDN vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 6% of the time

More Windows Azure CDN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

March 2025

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

CDN

March 2025

Download Hive Streaming product report

Buyer's Guide

CDN

March 2025

Download Windows Azure CDN product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

No data available

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

Hive Streaming allows you to reliably deliver video to any audience size in the highest quality and analyze the outcomes and trends of your video communication.

Hive Streaming

Windows Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) caches static web content at strategically placed locations to provide maximum throughput for delivering content to users. The CDN offers developers a global solution for delivering high-bandwidth content by caching the content at physical nodes across the world.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

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

HEXION

NORAD, Agreeya Mobility

Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare, Microsoft, Akamai and others in CDN. Updated: March 2025.

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