Azure Front Door and Azure Web Application Firewall compete in the domain of cloud security and performance solutions. Azure Front Door seems to have the upper hand in performance and scalability, thanks to its CDN and load-balancing capabilities, while Azure Web Application Firewall is favored for its robust security features.
Features: Azure Front Door is valued for its integration of CDN and load-balancing, providing global deployment, SSL offloading, and bot protection. It's easy to use for managing APIs. Azure WAF stands out with custom security rules, OWASP compliance, and effective DDoS protection, easily integrating into the Azure ecosystem.
Room for Improvement: Azure Front Door could improve by reducing costs, improving latency, and supporting multiple cloud vendors. Clearer distinctions from similar Azure products would also help. Azure WAF could enhance its deployment options, improve documentation, and offer more security features like its competitors.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both Azure Front Door and Azure WAF are well-supported and straightforward to configure. Azure WAF offers more flexibility in deployment within hybrid and private clouds, whereas Azure Front Door is optimized for public cloud support.
Pricing and ROI: Azure Front Door provides a flexible pricing model with a balanced cost-to-quality ratio. Azure WAF's pricing is reasonable for enterprises, although the free version has limited capabilities. Both solutions demonstrate strong ROI through efficient management within the Azure ecosystem.
Azure Front Door offers a quick return on investment once it is set up.
Recently, they have been under serious attack with major exploits, such as Log4j, affecting Fortinet and Palo Alto, and even Cisco and VMware.
AI-based recommendations save on time and money.
I am able to set up a critical call with Microsoft, and they respond quickly to tickets with the highest severity.
I hardly use Microsoft's paid subscription or maintenance services, however, whenever I send them a note, they have been responsive.
I am very satisfied with the response from Microsoft dedicated architects if it happens that I have to call for their support.
I find that Front Door can become expensive for large-scale projects with more transactions and users.
Scaling can be done anytime as needed.
Beyond a certain SKU, I can install and use these services.
I rate Azure Front Door's stability a nine because it is easy to make updates through Azure Portal.
Very rarely do I see any latency issues.
If I could use Azure Front Door with private IP addresses, it would be more beneficial.
The only significant adjustment required is with URL set parameters that need to be passed for an existing domain.
Upgrading the platform regularly is necessary for security, however, frequent updates every six months or year from Azure can be a maintenance overhead.
Azure Front Door is cheaper for small projects, companies, or applications compared to using separate tools.
It is even a lower cost compared to AWS and GCP.
Sometimes, when opting for a higher SKU, it's not the WAF itself that's costly but the additional requirements.
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.
Azure Front Door provides DDoS protection and features related to WAF.
With Microsoft, everything is within a single suite, making it easier to configure and plan.
It is almost impossible to access these assets from outside, requiring a very skilled attacker to obtain asset tokens of a customer using Azure.
Azure Front Door is employed for securing external traffic, global load balancing, integrating web application firewalls, enabling disaster recovery, and enhancing application accessibility.
Organizations leverage Azure Front Door to support data publishing, act as a CDN, and ensure low latency for global users. Clients use it to protect numerous internet-accessible applications, integrate with DNS, and implement custom routes. Favored for caching web content and securely, efficiently distributing traffic to backend services, Azure Front Door offers SSL offloading, traffic inspection, and global scalability. Users value its affordability, ease of implementation, and web application firewall. Azure Front Door provides rich security features, traffic management, and URL rewriting. Load-balancing capabilities enhance performance with additional content security policies and bot protection. Integrations, including with GitOps, along with combined CDN and load-balancing, are also highlighted.
What are the most important features?Azure Front Door finds usage across multiple industries due to its versatile applications. E-commerce companies benefit from improved global accessibility and speed, while financial institutions leverage its security features for protecting sensitive data. Media and entertainment sectors use its CDN capabilities for seamless content delivery, and healthcare providers rely on its compliance and protection standards for patient data security.
Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF) provides centralized protection of your web applications from common exploits and vulnerabilities. Web applications are increasingly targeted by malicious attacks that exploit commonly known vulnerabilities. SQL injection and cross-site scripting are among the most common attacks.
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