Amazon CloudFront vs Azure Front Door comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft are both solutions in the CDN category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.3, while Microsoft is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.8. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 6.9% mindshare in CDN, compared to Microsoft’s 12.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 2025

Amazon CloudFront and Azure Front Door compete in the realm of content delivery networks, focusing on global data distribution and application security. Azure Front Door holds an edge in providing integrated security features and robust traffic management capabilities.

Features: Amazon CloudFront offers high-speed content delivery through a worldwide network of edge locations, ensuring reduced latency. It comes equipped with DDoS protection and customizable caching options while integrating seamlessly with AWS services. Azure Front Door excels with built-in Web Application Firewall (WAF) for security, global load balancing, and intelligent routing. Its Rules Engine allows fine-tuned control over data flow, and users benefit from detailed analytics.

Room for Improvement: Amazon CloudFront faces criticism for high pricing and limited edge location coverage in regions like Asia-Pacific, which can increase latency. Its interface can also be challenging for some users. Azure Front Door requires improvements in its DDoS protection and clearer user guidance to simplify service use. Users are looking for more competitive pricing and expanded load-balancing capabilities in Azure services.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both Amazon CloudFront and Azure Front Door provide straightforward deployment processes with excellent public cloud support. Users of CloudFront note that Amazon's customer service is typically responsive, although this can depend on the support plan selected. Azure users report satisfactory documentation for self-management, with premium support offering effective solutions for complex queries.

Pricing and ROI: Amazon CloudFront employs a pay-as-you-go pricing model, often considered expensive when factoring in data transfer and edge usage but offering significant ROI in global delivery and infrastructure cost savings. Azure Front Door offers attractive pricing for smaller projects but can become pricey at premium levels. It achieves a balance between cost and features, generating a good ROI for applications needing global and secure distribution. Both services are valuable for enterprises requiring secure, global reach.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon CloudFront vs. Azure Front Door Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon CloudFront vs. Azure Front Door

December 2025

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Helped 879,711 peers since 2012

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

6.5

Cloudflare users experienced increased performance, security, and cost-effectiveness, leading to improved loyalty and revenue despite difficult ROI calculations.

Sentiment score

7.3

Amazon CloudFront boosts global accessibility, reduces costs, enhances stability, improves e-commerce profits, and decreases server maintenance and hiring needs.

Sentiment score

6.9

Azure Front Door offers ROI through cost reduction, quick setup, and simplified management, prompting proactive adoption amid system phase-out.

For the small project I was working on, using the basic tier provided a huge improvement at zero cost.

Wellington Malagutti

Security Specialist at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

In terms of return on investment with Cloudflare, it costs my time to set them up, but basically once they're set up, it's done.

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon CloudFront report

Azure Front Door offers a quick return on investment once it is set up.

Bernard Parinas

Co-Founder at arpa

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Front Door report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

7.0

Cloudflare's customer service is quick, but technical support feedback is mixed, with improvement needed in responsiveness and detailed assistance.

Sentiment score

6.4

Amazon CloudFront's support varies by tier, with premium users receiving better service, though some experience delays and documentation issues.

Sentiment score

7.1

Azure Front Door's customer service is mixed; some praise responsiveness and documentation, others find problem-solving quality inconsistent.

Cloudflare does not offer hands-on technical support to fix customer problems but rather a self-service model.

reviewer1245303

Senior Consultant CDN at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

I would rate the technical support with Cloudflare as excellent every time I've had to call them.

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

I have primarily worked not with the tool's customer support but with the product's sales engineers and technical sales engineers, who seem to know their stuff.

reviewer2541525

Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

I would rate the technical support by Amazon AWS as satisfactory, as they generally address issues promptly.

Nicolas Forgues

Head of Data & Content at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon CloudFront report

I am able to set up a critical call with Microsoft, and they respond quickly to tickets with the highest severity.

Bernard Parinas

Co-Founder at arpa

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Front Door report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

8.1

Users praise Cloudflare for seamless scalability, effective traffic management, easy upgrades, and robust global infrastructure without disruptions.

Sentiment score

8.3

Amazon CloudFront excels in scalability, reliably supporting large-scale operations and high traffic for diverse businesses and events.

Sentiment score

7.1

Azure Front Door offers scalable, reliable global capabilities, highly rated by users, though it may become costly with extensive use.

It is a SaaS tool, but the fact that they have workloads deployed across the world proves that it is a highly scalable tool.

reviewer2541525

Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

The tool offers very good performance, even during high-traffic periods.

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch

Engineer at SITMEXICO

I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.

Prajith Chowthee

Independent Consultant at Unaikui

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon CloudFront report

I find that Front Door can become expensive for large-scale projects with more transactions and users.

Mohamed Amin Nasri

Azure Consultant at cloudshift

I consider the scalability of Azure Front Door to be strong.

Bernard Parinas

Co-Founder at arpa

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Front Door report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.6

Cloudflare is highly rated for stability and uptime, with few past issues, especially on higher-tier plans.

Sentiment score

8.2

Amazon CloudFront is highly reliable with global availability, low latency, and stability ratings of eight to ten by users.

Sentiment score

8.4

Azure Front Door is praised for stability and performance, with minor DNS issues and advantages in updates via Azure Portal.

I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.

Prajith Chowthee

Independent Consultant at Unaikui

The service is very stable with no impacts during high-traffic periods.

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch

Engineer at SITMEXICO

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

If Amazon CloudFront is present, it will decrease latency; if it is not, then latency would be slightly greater, but it would still work.

BhupendraSolanki

Cloud Support Engineer at Operisoft Technologies

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon CloudFront report

I rate Azure Front Door's stability a nine because it is easy to make updates through Azure Portal.

Bernard Parinas

Co-Founder at arpa

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Front Door report

Room For Improvement

Enhancements needed in Cloudflare: analytics, CDN latency, API integration, user support, DNS, pricing, documentation, server coverage, WAF, and cache.

Amazon CloudFront faces integration, latency, user-friendliness, and support challenges, with calls for price cuts and more data centers.

Azure Front Door needs improvements in multi-cloud support, pricing, user interface, DDoS protection, and enhanced functionalities as per feedback.

Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor.

Bilal Mujahid

Managed Services Manager at Adapture Technology Group

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.

Darryl Wethington

Senior Cloud Solution Architect at Integrated Technology Solution Group (ITSG)

There are some performance considerations when it comes to dynamic content that involves fetching data from databases or using APIs.

Animesh.Kumar

Senior Solutions Architect at Think Power Solutions

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

The pricing for Amazon CloudFront is quite expensive; I would rate it six if we use all edges.

BhupendraSolanki

Cloud Support Engineer at Operisoft Technologies

I believe they may lack certain functionalities.

Nicolas Forgues

Head of Data & Content at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon CloudFront report

If I could use Azure Front Door with private IP addresses, it would be more beneficial.

Mohamed Amin Nasri

Azure Consultant at cloudshift

It relies on the WAF module where users must configure rate-limiting rules, as it does not automatically sense malicious spikes in traffic.

reviewer2226693

Architect at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees

The only significant adjustment required is with URL set parameters that need to be passed for an existing domain.

Bernard Parinas

Co-Founder at arpa

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Front Door report

Setup Cost

Cloudflare offers scalable pricing, from free to enterprise plans, providing significant value especially for mid-sized companies.

Amazon CloudFront's pricing is mixed, appreciated for flexibility and free tier, but criticized for complexity and high costs.

Azure Front Door offers flexible, tiered pricing praised for balancing cost and features, though premium levels may seem expensive.

I find it to be cheap.

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch

Engineer at SITMEXICO

I rate the product’s pricing a five out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive.

Animesh.Kumar

Senior Solutions Architect at Think Power Solutions

The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive.

reviewer2541525

Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon CloudFront report

Azure Front Door is cheaper for small projects, companies, or applications compared to using separate tools.

Mohamed Amin Nasri

Azure Consultant at cloudshift

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Front Door report

Valuable Features

Cloudflare enhances performance and security with CDN caching, DDoS protection, and an easy-to-use dashboard, benefiting many users.

Amazon CloudFront delivers fast, secure content through global caching, easy integration, and seamless AWS service compatibility, enhancing performance.

Azure Front Door enhances security, performance, and global reach with features like SSL offloading, load-balancing, and traffic analytics.

The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security.

Darryl Wethington

Senior Cloud Solution Architect at Integrated Technology Solution Group (ITSG)

Techniques like minification and image compression reduce the size of assets, leading to better performance and faster user load times.

Animesh.Kumar

Senior Solutions Architect at Think Power Solutions

The solution has been able to compare it to the market, and I think the product has taken great strides in automating quite a bit of things, and they use a lot of AI.

reviewer2541525

Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

It drastically reduces latency, which is very useful for web performance and user experience.

BhupendraSolanki

Cloud Support Engineer at Operisoft Technologies

I would assess the impact of Amazon CloudFront's integration with services such as EC2, S3, and Lambda on my content customization as quite significant.

Nicolas Forgues

Head of Data & Content at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon CloudFront report

Azure Front Door provides DDoS protection and features related to WAF.

Mohamed Amin Nasri

Azure Consultant at cloudshift

Azure Front Door includes a built-in web application firewall, which performs signature-based checks of the request payload, offering protection against common attacks or malicious requests.

Bernard Parinas

Co-Founder at arpa

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Front Door report

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 19.1%, down from 21.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon CloudFront is 6.9%, down from 8.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure Front Door is 12.0%, down from 20.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

CDN Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Cloudflare	19.1%
Amazon CloudFront	6.9%
Azure Front Door	12.0%
Other	62.0%

CDN

Featured Reviews

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

Has helped manage client domains with streamlined access control and threat visibility

I don't know what areas could be improved with Cloudflare WAF; Cloudflare is constantly improving and adding features to their feature set. They're doing a good job, and as far as DNS and support for any domains that I create or my clients create, it's mandatory for me to make sure that they have Cloudflare as their DNS provider. The Cloudflare load balancing capability hasn't really helped in enhancing my website's uptime and resiliency because we don't really get that much traffic; it's mostly remote users, and web hosting is done by a web hosting service. It doesn't pay to try to host your own website.

Read full review

Nicolas Forgues

Head of Data & Content at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees

Improved web performance has boosted content customization and currently delivers faster user experiences

From my perspective, I see some weaknesses in Amazon CloudFront; I would rate the product something around nine out of ten, but there are disadvantages compared to its competitors. Talking specifically about Amazon CloudFront, I think they could have some additional features in the future, and I believe they may lack certain functionalities.

Read full review

reviewer2226693

Architect at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees

Optimizing global application performance with robust security measures and advanced traffic management

DDoS capabilities in Azure Front Door could certainly be improved. Although Microsoft states it comes with basic DDoS protections out of the box, I find it often ineffectual in mitigating thousands of requests from a single source in a short span of time. User then have to rely on the WAF module where users must configure rate-limiting rules, as it does not automatically sense malicious spikes in traffic. I believe Front Door should have an out-of-the-box premium DDoS protection that can automatically detect and block malicious traffic. I would appreciate improvements in the turnaround time for support, especially since issues with Azure Front Door are usually critical for businesses. If there is an issue, it often results in downtime for line of business applications. I have faced this situation multiple times as one of the largest financial institutions in India is hosted there, adhering to strict SLAs that require prompt responses.

Read full review

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	25

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	21
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	16

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	9

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

How do I choose between AWS Global Accelerator and Amazon CloudFront?

Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon’s Web Service Global Accelerator or Amazon CloudFro...

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What do you like most about Amazon CloudFront?

The solution has good security features.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon CloudFront?

I find Amazon's pricing good, rating it eight out of ten and considering it affordable and rightly placed, not expens...

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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...

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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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Azure Front Door?

DDoS capabilities in Azure Front Door could certainly be improved. Although Microsoft states it comes with basic DDoS...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 51% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Myra Security DDoS Protection vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

Radware DDoS vs Cloudflare

Compared 1% of the time

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Akamai vs Amazon CloudFront

Compared 11% of the time

Windows Azure CDN vs Amazon CloudFront

Compared 7% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Amazon CloudFront

Compared 5% of the time

Fastly vs Amazon CloudFront

Compared 5% of the time

AWS Global Accelerator vs Amazon CloudFront

Compared 5% of the time

More Amazon CloudFront Competitors

Akamai vs Azure Front Door

Compared 10% of the time

AWS Global Accelerator vs Azure Front Door

Compared 8% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Azure Front Door

Compared 5% of the time

Azure Firewall vs Azure Front Door

Compared 4% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Azure Front Door

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

January 2026

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

Amazon CloudFront

January 2026

Download Amazon CloudFront product report

Buyer's Guide

Azure Front Door

January 2026

Download Azure Front Door product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

No data available

Azure Front-Door

Overview

Cloudflare enhances web performance and security with features like CDN caching and DDoS mitigation while providing easy DNS management and intuitive setup through its user-friendly dashboard.

Cloudflare is recognized for its comprehensive web security and performance solutions. Speed improvements are achieved through caching mechanisms and DDoS protection, combining ease of DNS management with flexible page rules. The robust analytics and threat insight tools provide valuable data, assisted by a user-friendly dashboard allowing quick setup and configuration. An API offers dynamic DNS settings ensuring low latency and high performance across the globe.

What are Cloudflare's key features?

CDN Caching: Enhances website speed through content delivery network caching.
Web Application Firewall: Protects websites from online threats.
DDoS Mitigation: Shields against distributed denial-of-service attacks.
DNS Management: Offers easy-to-use and flexible domain management.
SSL Certificates: Ensures secure connections between users and servers.
Analytics: Provides insights with robust analytics tools.

What benefits and ROI should users evaluate?

Enhanced Security: Strengthening web security with DDoS and firewall protection.
Speed Improvement: Faster content delivery with CDN caching.
Operational Simplicity: Simplifies website optimization through a user-friendly interface.
Scalable Solutions: Scales with global reach, lowering latency for improved performance.
Cost Efficiency: Offers layers of valuable functionality with pricing options.

Cloudflare finds utility across industries for DNS management and defense mechanisms. Its content delivery network assures fast content distribution and fortified security. Businesses integrate features like web application firewalls, load balancing, end-to-end SSL, and zero trust to protect websites from cyber threats while ensuring resilience and reliable performance.

Cloudflare

Amazon CloudFront is a global content delivery network (CDN) service that accelerates delivery of your websites, APIs, video content or other web assets. It integrates with other Amazon Web Services products to give developers and businesses an easy way to accelerate content to end users with no minimum usage commitments. Amazon CloudFront can be used to deliver your entire website, including dynamic, static, streaming, and interactive content using a global network of edge locations. Requests for your content are automatically routed to the nearest edge location, so content is delivered with the best possible performance. Amazon CloudFront is optimized to work with other Amazon Web Services, like Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Elastic Load Balancing, and Amazon Route 53. Amazon CloudFront also works seamlessly with any non-AWS origin server, which stores the original, definitive versions of your files. Like other Amazon Web Services products, there are no long-term contracts or minimum monthly usage commitments for using Amazon CloudFront – you pay only for as much or as little content as you actually deliver through the content delivery service.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Azure Front Door enhances web application performance and security by leveraging traffic inspection, SSL offloading, and a web application firewall. It enables intelligent routing, load balancing, and global resource deployment while providing essential features for online application security.

Azure Front Door integrates GitOps for seamless deployment, offering significant capabilities in giant networks like CDN functionalities and DDoS protection. Its advanced configurations include traffic analytics and transit layer security. Despite its affordability and scalability, users see room for improvement in global load balancing and private IP address support, citing integration challenges with other cloud vendors. The interface may appear complex, and some users desire more transparent pricing, better DDoS defenses, and enhanced monitoring. This platform is especially beneficial for securing external traffic and optimizing content delivery, providing DNS integration and disaster recovery mechanisms.

What are the key features of Azure Front Door?

Traffic Inspection: Enhances security with comprehensive traffic analysis at the network level.
SSL Offloading: Streamlines SSL certificate management and encryption processes.
Web Application Firewall: Offers protection against web vulnerabilities and threats.
Global Resource Implementation: Facilitates deployment across multiple regions.
Intelligent Routing and Load Balancing: Optimizes traffic distribution for efficient performance.
Bot and DDoS Protection: Shields applications from malicious traffic and attacks.
CDN Capabilities: Accelerates content delivery with local caching and optimized routing.

What benefits and ROI should users expect?

Affordability: Provides robust features at competitive pricing.
Scalability: Adapts easily to growing traffic demands and business needs.
Security: Delivers comprehensive defenses against cyber threats.
Performance Optimization: Enhances application responsiveness and delivery speed.
Global Reach: Supports globally distributed applications with ease.

In industries focusing on online presence and global user engagement, Azure Front Door is invaluable for optimizing web application performance. E-commerce platforms deploy it to secure transactions and enhance load times. Media companies leverage its CDN and security features to ensure seamless content delivery. Enterprises with international operations find it crucial for reliable and secure data access across regions.

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.

Unilever, Spotify, Pinterest, MLB Advanced Media, Foursquare, PBS, Airbnb, Netflix, WIX, Comcast, Automobili Lamborghini, Rovio, Discovery Communications

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Amazon CloudFront vs. Azure Front Door

December 2025

Free Report: Amazon CloudFront vs. Azure Front Door

Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon CloudFront vs. Azure Front Door and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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