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Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

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
7.6
Azure Front Door offers cost savings and efficient management, yielding a clear return on investment despite initial transition uncertainties.
Sentiment score
7.4
Cloudflare WAF delivers immediate ROI by securing e-commerce and banking platforms, ensuring operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.2
Azure Front Door receives high marks for customer service, with users praising knowledgeable support staff and clear documentation.
Sentiment score
6.1
Cloudflare's support is praised for responsiveness and effectiveness, though some Indian users face communication challenges and prefer local help.
I am able to set up a critical call with Microsoft, and they respond quickly to tickets with the highest severity.
The technical support of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall rates between five and seven at maximum.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Azure Front Door offers scalable, reliable solutions for enterprises, enhancing performance and managing applications efficiently despite higher costs.
Sentiment score
8.1
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is praised for its scalability, flexibility, automation, and superior advantages compared to open-source solutions.
I find that Front Door can become expensive for large-scale projects with more transactions and users.
I consider the scalability of Azure Front Door to be strong.
The scalability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall rates between 8 to 9, as it depends upon the use cases and what exactly the client needs.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.5
Azure Front Door is praised for high stability and reliability, though some DNS management issues are occasionally noted.
Sentiment score
8.4
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is highly stable and reliable, ensuring uninterrupted, effective protection and user satisfaction.
I rate Azure Front Door's stability a nine because it is easy to make updates through Azure Portal.
The stability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall deserves a perfect 10 out of 10.
 

Room For Improvement

Azure Front Door requires enhancements in multi-cloud support, load balancing, IP support, latency, UI, pricing, rules, monitoring, and APIs.
Cloudflare WAF must update features, improve documentation and support, reduce false negatives, and enhance usability, integrations, and visibility.
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.
The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available.
They need to improve their support because getting a response for basic requests took around 48 hours, which is too long.
 

Setup Cost

Azure Front Door's pay-as-you-go pricing offers flexibility, with costs and value balancing for various project needs.
Enterprise users find Cloudflare's Web Application Firewall competitively priced, reasonable, and transparent despite starting fees and optional features.
Azure Front Door is cheaper for small projects, companies, or applications compared to using separate tools.
 

Valuable Features

Azure Front Door provides scalable, secure, and affordable solutions with advanced features like SSL offloading, load balancing, and DDoS protection.
Cloudflare WAF offers API configurability, comprehensive features, robust security, scalability, with strong integration and technical support.
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.
The custom rules and the geo-redundant geographical rule feature, which allows me to implement geographical rules for customers, add significant value.
The best features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall are multiple, including the WAF, rate limiter, and bot attack protection.
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure Front Door
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
13th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
CDN (2nd), Microsoft Security Suite (18th)
Cloudflare Web Application ...
Ranking in Web Application Firewall (WAF)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Azure Front Door is 4.5%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 7.5%, up from 6.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
SachidDoshi - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers a huge signature repository and is superiorly effective in mitigating DDoS attacks
The solution's learning curve can still be further reduced, which presently stands at two or three months. The product has a custom rule set that users can modify and manifest as needed. The vendor can probably shorten the learning curve using cutting-edge technologies like AI. The solution provider can also work around the web applications and identify the toolset that needs to be implemented to deploy the solution in less time. The vendor has launched a SASE product that can function with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall, but many improvements are needed in terms of features, such as the web filtering feature, and CASB has not yet been added.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Educational Organization
14%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What do you like most about Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
The product has a valuable security control functionality.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
Cloudflare is cheaper compared to Azure WAF, which I have considered before.
What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?
The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available. This improvement would enable managed service providers to implement it more effectively.
 

Also Known As

Azure Front-Door
Cloudflare WAF
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Front Door vs. Cloudflare Web Application Firewall and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.