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Akamai vs Azure Front Door comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

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

Akamai
Ranking in CDN
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Azure Front Door
Ranking in CDN
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (13th), Microsoft Security Suite (18th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Akamai is 17.7%, up from 15.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure Front Door is 18.3%, down from 19.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CDN
 

Featured Reviews

Aryan Singh1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers great enterprise support, ideal for solutions requiring high scalability and seamless integration with AWS infrastructure
For Akamai, it is definitely one of the best tools out there. However, there are challenges with how their approach is designed for large enterprises. While it's great for solutions with high scalability, like global e-commerce, it's not really built for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). It has too many options and can be complex for SMBs to utilize. That's the biggest challenge we faced when migrating to Akamai from other solutions, like Cloudflare. It can be difficult to migrate between platforms. Due to its great features but high activation thresholds. So, while it's a powerful tool, it has limitations for some implementations. It was difficult to migrate from and to Akamai. It is challenging when we are building a website.
SayedAbdelrhman - PeerSpot reviewer
Provide bot protection and has proficient documentation
During our discussion with the internal Microsoft team about assessing our environment, they confirmed that we have sufficient security measures, especially regarding edge protection. Internally, we believe we are now certified. In the future, we could consider adding layer four protection from the firewall. Front Door combines CDN and WAF protection, so further enhancing its features could benefit both the customer and us. We monitor the number of users attempting to access our IP or DNS servers. When designing the system, we initially needed to ensure our environment was protected with a WAF. However, WAF is currently too costly for us, so we created private links and connected them to Front Door. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Akamai is its ease of use and simple integration. Additionally, the solution has new aspects added to it regularly."
"We can see how much traffic can be downloaded on the portal."
"Akamai's scalability is good."
"This solution can be used for web , video and media caching and streaming."
"It's a scalable and reliable solution."
"Akamai has a very established network of PoPs globally."
"The solution's technical support is very prompt and good."
"With 300 servers deployed worldwide, it's highly scalable and is the best web application firewall on the market."
"Has a great application firewall and we like the security."
"Rules Engine is a valuable feature."
"The solution is good."
"The price is one of the most important aspects of the product. It's quite affordable."
"The most valuable feature is that I can have CDN and load-balancing capabilities in a single service instead of managing two separate tools."
"I am impressed with the tool's integrations."
"I find the technical support excellent, and I rate it a ten."
"It inspects the traffic at the network level before it comes into Azure. We can do SSL offloading, and it can detect abnormalities before the traffic comes into the application. It can be used globally and is easy to set up. It is also quite stable and scalable."
 

Cons

"After three or four months from this perspective, I don’t know all the features on the platform yet, so I am still learning about it."
"Their support is very slow. If you file a support ticket, it takes a long time before it gets resolved."
"It would be better if we could be notified about specific attacks."
"While it's great for solutions with high scalability, like global e-commerce, it's not really built for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). It has too many options and can be complex for SMBs to utilize."
"Sometimes a little hard to navigate around the user console."
"I'd like to see more Web 3.0 and IoT solutions."
"I'd like to see improvements in log files and data visualizations within the interface."
"Akamai could improve by providing its own cloud services. We have to use third-party cloud services at this time, such as Amazon AWS. The offering becomes a lot easier for an SMB if everything was in one single platform to be used for the services."
"I'm responsible for the governance and cost control of Azure. I'm not a specialist in any products and therefore I couldn't really speak effectively to features that are lacking or missing."
"The product needs to improve its latency."
"There could be improvements regarding its pricing for large-scale projects."
"I dislike the URL set parameters."
"It lacks sufficient functionality."
"The product's features are limited compared to Cloudflare. The tool also doesn't work well in a hybrid environment. I would like to see a way to add personalized APIs in the system."
"We should be able to use Front Door defenders with multiple cloud vendors. Currently, they can be used only with the Azure cloud. Azure Front Door should also be able to do global load balancing and provide internal front door services. Microsoft should clearly define what Traffic Manager, Application Gateway, and Azure Front Door products do. These are similar products, and people get confused between these products."
"There's a limitation on the amount of global rules we can add."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Akamai is an expensive tool. Moreover, we have a pay-as-you-go model for additional features."
"This is a very expensive solution but it works well."
"Price-wise, I find Akamai's pricing model's inclination to be more towards the expensive side of the spectrum, though I can't say that it is a very expensive product."
"It is an expensive product. The licensing costs for the solution are based on the usage. If we need premium support, we need to buy it from Akamai."
"The price of Akamai could be less expensive."
"The price of the solution depends upon its usage."
"The solution's pricing is based on bandwidth."
"The pricing of Akamai is moderate, in my opinion. My company makes yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to Akamai. There are no additional costs besides the licensing costs for the solution."
"The product is expensive."
"The transition to the premium tier has led to increased costs, making it more expensive than the classic tier."
"The solution is a bit expensive."
"It is on a pay-as-you-go basis."
"Considering the standard licensing of the tool, even though we have not checked the billing as of now, it might not be very costly."
"The pricing of the solution is good."
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Comparison Review

it_user69348 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 17, 2013
Akamai vs. CloudFlare – Simple Stats
In the world of CDNs Akamai is the incumbent 500 pound gorilla, no question. They have a HUGE global presence, super solid technology and networks, and have the most experience with large enterprise clients. However, now there other strong players in the CDN market. One of the most…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Educational Organization
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Akamai?
The most valuable feature in managing web traffic has been the ability to handle vertical scaling effectively.
What needs improvement with Akamai?
Akamai could improve by having a more robust and responsive support team. While the support is not bad, there is room for enhancement, particularly in reducing the delay for support.
What is your primary use case for Akamai?
We use Akamai ( /products/akamai-reviews ) as our CDN ( /categories/cdn ) to advertise prefixes and download traffic. It provides a better experience, especially for streaming and gaming. In our ne...
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 excellent support. Azure Front Door can quickly detect abnormalities before the...
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Azure Front-Door
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Bank of America, Capital One, Cisco, Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines, Disney, Ebay, Facebook, Google, Home Depot, HP, IBM, Intel, JPMorgan Chase, LinkedIn, McDonald's, Microsoft, Netflix, Nike, Oracle, PayPal, Pinterest, Qualcomm, Rakuten, SAP, Spotify, Tesla, Toyota, Visa, Walmart, WeWork
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai vs. Azure Front Door and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.