Amazon CloudFront vs Cloudflare vs Windows Azure CDN comparison

Read 75 Cloudflare reviews

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6,782 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Windows Azure CDN

Read 12 Windows Azure CDN reviews

958 Views
831 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Amazon CloudFront

Windows Azure CDN

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Amazon CloudFront, Cloudflare, 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: April 2025).

CDN

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Helped 849,963 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:

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Amazon CloudFront is 8.1%, down from 11.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cloudflare is 22.3%, up from 21.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Windows Azure CDN is 3.0%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

CDN

Featured Reviews

Parth Buch

Infrastructure Architecture at Capgemini

Seamlessly manages security and dynamic content hosting in diverse applications

Hosting static content or with engineering dynamic content is beneficial. CloudFront provides a common access point, manages routing to different methods, and serves as an access point plus API routing. With AWS, maintenance is not required as it's a service offered by AWS which maintains itself. Security concerns are manageable through AWS's security mechanisms, with additional security enhancement possible through options like WAF and NACL.

It's easy to set up because you point the DNS to it, and it's working in under 15 minutes

Spencer Malmad

Owner at Tech Exchange

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.

Helps to handle edge cases and has purge features

Muhammad ZaheerNazir

Team Lead and Solutions Architect at Systems Arabia

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.

More Amazon CloudFront pros

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the most valuable features of CloudFront is the reduced latency due to its edge locations, which results in a very fast delivery of data."

"The solution has good security features."

"Edge configuration and availability are vital features for easy content drop-off requests"

"The solution makes our platform fully accessible and available globally, helping us to ensure that our customers can rely on it being up and running."

"The tool is highly available and reliable. It helps to access server applications easily. Integrating Amazon CloudFront with other AWS services was very easy, I would rate it eight out of ten."

"Amazon CloudFront provides valuable security by ensuring secure file access when accessing files from S3."

"The product’s most valuable feature is the availability of the websites."

"The product is very well interconnected with other Amazon services."

"It's very user-friendly."

"Easier http to https redirect using page rules"

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

"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."

"The attacker won't have details since my public IP is anonymous. It offers us good privacy."

"It is a fast and secure DNS."

"The simplicity of the overall dashboard makes it a great product for a user like me who has less understanding of the internet than a developer or other more technical people. It gives me peace of mind. I also love the easy customization of the Page Rules."

"The solution offers the flexibility to control configuration rules."

More Cloudflare pros

"The UI is very intuitive."

"We use the product for faster content delivery with low latency."

"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 geolocation feature is very important because many colleagues travel worldwide and need to access information from anywhere. The product has improved security."

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

"It is a stable solution."

"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."

"The fact that it just delivers what it is supposed to do is its most valuable feature...The initial setup is very straightforward."

More Windows Azure CDN pros

Cons

"Amazon CloudFront could improve by making it easier to integrate with components from different cloud providers."

"Amazon CloudFront's setup is a bit difficult, and we would love it if they made it easier."

"During the setup phase, there were some hiccups in terms of security, the user role, and the permissions."

"There are some solutions needed for integration that are not free."

"Sometimes, the server goes down automatically."

"Amazon CloudFront can improve by accurately determining the latency of a non-defined URL that the solution encounters."

"There is room for improvement in customer service and support."

"The user interface could be improved."

More Amazon CloudFront cons

"For large enterprises, the pricing is okay. However, the enterprise price for small projects is a bit high. A mid-tier pricing option would be beneficial."

"The pricing could be improved."

"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."

"One area of improvement is in the Access Rules. Hypothetically, if we wanted to block or challenge traffic outside of the United States, the only way to currently do that (as far as I know) is to enter every single country outside of the United States. That could be a labor intensive job. A solution could be to enable users to create a rule where traffic is only allowed within a certain country."

"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."

"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."

"We have noticed multiple instances where Cloudflare falsely indicates that our servers are down, even when there is no actual load on them. This makes it challenging for us to identify the exact issue."

"The product needs to improve its automation."

More Cloudflare cons

"We have experienced issues with switch connectivity."

"The response time of the support team must be improved."

"The solution’s pricing could be improved."

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

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

"Windows Azure CDN should lower its prices."

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

"They should include configuration for cache rules."

More Windows Azure CDN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the product's pricing an eight out of ten. The licensing follows a pay-as-you-go model."

"The product has a mid-range pricing."

"Its price is really on the high side. It should be cheaper in general."

"Compared to competitors like Azure and Google, we find AWS pricing to be advantageous."

"Amazon's pricing varies depending on the data transfer."

"The product could improve its price."

"For CloudFront, I'm quite satisfied with the pricing. Initially, it doesn't require many resources for this specific solution."

"The solution’s price is reasonable."

More Amazon CloudFront pricing and cost advice

"The solution has many features but there are ones that you need to pay for. Sometimes you have to find out which is available for free and which you have to pay for."

"I think the pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."

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

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

"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."

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

"We are using the free version."

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

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

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

"The tool's pricing is cheap."

"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."

"It comes at a relatively affordable cost."

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

"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."

"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."

"The pricing of the solution depends on usage and varies based on the company's needs. If you want additional features like advanced logging, it will be pricier. However, it could be cheaper if you don't need those features. It all depends on the resources and requirements."

More Windows Azure CDN pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which CDN solutions are best for your needs.

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Comparison Review

it_user68487

Security Expert with 51-200 employees

Nov 6, 2013

CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Web Application Firewall

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

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

22%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

Educational Organization

17%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

34%

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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

What do you like most about Amazon CloudFront?

The solution has good security features.

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...

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 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...

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...

What needs improvement with Windows Azure CDN?

Windows Azure CDN should lower its prices.

Azure Front Door vs Amazon CloudFront

Comparisons

Compared 59% of the time

Akamai vs Amazon CloudFront

Compared 11% of the time

AWS Global Accelerator vs Amazon CloudFront

Compared 3% of the time

AWS WAF vs Amazon CloudFront

Compared 3% of the time

Fastly vs Amazon CloudFront

Compared 2% of the time

More Amazon CloudFront Competitors

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 50% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Imperva DDoS vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

Akamai vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 28% of the time

Edgio vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 21% of the time

Fastly vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 8% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 4% of the time

More Windows Azure CDN Competitors

Product Reports

Amazon CloudFront

Download Amazon CloudFront product report

Download Cloudflare product report

CDN

Download Windows Azure CDN product report

Also Known As

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Cloudflare DNS

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Overview

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)

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