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Amazon CloudFront vs Windows Azure CDN comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 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

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Ranking in CDN
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th)
Amazon CloudFront
Ranking in CDN
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Windows Azure CDN
Ranking in CDN
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 22.3%, up from 21.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon CloudFront is 8.1%, down from 11.4% 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

Spencer Malmad - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Parth Buch - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Muhammad ZaheerNazir - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

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 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."
"The DDoS protection is the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"The solution is very good at mitigating threats."
"Its most significant benefit to date is the speed with which it refreshes DNS records on the internet once you change it. If you are changing a website or registering a new record, it is very quick."
"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."
"The features of Cloudflare were found to be more beneficial and led to the decision to utilize it over other options."
"It's very user-friendly."
"There are key things that are used for our enterprise customers, such as Lambda and DNS."
"Its main advantage is that it offers something in this region that wasn't available before; previously, you had to go outside of the region to get the same level of service that you can now access right here in Bahrain. It's truly incredible. Building this IX has significantly changed how traffic is handled. The technical support is good. The initial setup is very straightforward. I rate the solution a perfect ten."
"Feature-wise, I like the solution's signed URL because it provides security for me."
"The distribution aspect of CloudFront and its ability to reduce latency are most beneficial."
"It is an expensive product with valuable features."
"The solution has good security features."
"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."
"The best feature of Amazon CloudFront is its simplified process and easy integration."
"The most beneficial feature is capturing the static data, which is crucial for our operations."
"It is a stable solution."
"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."
"The geolocation feature is very important because many colleagues travel worldwide and need to access information from anywhere. The product has improved security."
"I like that CDN offers a routing feature."
"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."
"We use the product for faster content delivery with low latency."
"The fact that it just delivers what it is supposed to do is its most valuable feature...The initial setup is very straightforward."
 

Cons

"It would be beneficial for us if Cloudflare could offer a scrubbing solution. This would involve taking a snapshot of my website and keeping it live during a DDoS attack, ensuring uninterrupted service for our users. DDoS attacks are typically short in duration, and having Cloudflare maintain the site's availability from its secure network would enhance the overall user experience. I would appreciate it if Cloudflare could consider implementing this feature. Many organizations already utilize similar capabilities in their CDN platforms, where a static snapshot of the web page is displayed during DDoS attacks. In terms of features, Cloudflare needs to enhance its resilience and stay more focused on adopting new technologies. For instance, solutions like F5 XC Box, Access Solution, and Distributed Cloud Solution have impressive features, and Cloudflare should strive to match and exceed those capabilities. There's a need for improvement in areas like AI-based DDoS attacks and Layer 7 WAF features. Cloudflare should prioritize enhancements in areas such as behavioral DDoS and protection against SQL injection attacks, considering the prevalent trend of public exposure to the internet for business reasons. Overall, Cloudflare needs to invest more in advancing its feature set."
"There are some issues with the CDN services."
"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."
"Latencies are always a problem."
"Integration involving API with other products could be more user-friendly."
"DNS Management."
"The solution could be more user-friendly."
"The solution could use more analytics on the backend to give us more insights into everything. More reports would be helpful."
"I have utilized certain characteristics and invested effort in reading the documentation, which proved to be challenging."
"The solution can benefit from expanding its data center and server locations to multiple places for smoother content delivery with even lower latency. The latency we experience is sufficient for our needs, and we are doing well. However, if they expand their locations in the future, it could be a positive factor. Its competitors have multiple data and server locations."
"A lot of caching features must be added to the solution."
"Amazon CloudFront seems to have too many unnecessary products, which makes it cluttered."
"They should have more Edge locations so that CloudFront can be used much more. If they can make it a little bit cheaper and better than other networks, we will be able to use it more."
"During the setup phase, there were some hiccups in terms of security, the user role, and the permissions."
"Amazon CloudFront could improve by making it easier to integrate with components from different cloud providers."
"Improvements are needed as per customer requirements."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"They should include configuration for cache rules."
"Windows Azure CDN should lower its prices."
"Exploring shared access solutions with cloud accounts would be a beneficial choice."
"The high price of Windows Azure CDN is an area of concern where improvements can be made."
"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."
"We have experienced issues with switch connectivity."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."
"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"We don't have any issues with the price."
"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."
"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 price is reasonable."
"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."
"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."
"I rate Amazon CloudFront's pricing a five out of ten."
"For CloudFront, I'm quite satisfied with the pricing. Initially, it doesn't require many resources for this specific solution."
"The tool is affordable."
"The product could improve its price."
"We do not have many options to optimize costs."
"The policies and prices keep on changing frequently with AWS solutions"
"Its price is really on the high side. It should be cheaper in general."
"I rate the product's pricing an eight out of ten. The licensing follows a pay-as-you-go model."
"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 solution's price is above the medium range."
"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 is extremely high, almost 9 out of 10."
"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."
"It comes at a relatively affordable cost."
"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."
"The tool's pricing is cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
21%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Educational Organization
34%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

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.
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...
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...
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
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Overview

 

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
NORAD, Agreeya Mobility
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon CloudFront vs. Windows Azure CDN and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.