Azure Front Door vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services comparison

Microsoft and F5 are both solutions in the CDN category. Microsoft is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.9, while F5 is ranked #10 with an average rating of 10.0. Microsoft holds a 13.1% mindshare in CDN, compared to F5’s 2.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of F5 users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

Azure Front Door and F5 Distributed Cloud Services are competing products in the cloud services market. Azure Front Door offers an edge with cost-effective pricing and solid customer support, while F5 Distributed Cloud Services provides a more robust feature set that often justifies its higher price.

Features: Azure Front Door provides customizable traffic routing, SSL termination, and DDoS protection, targeting web application performance. F5 Distributed Cloud Services has advanced security features, comprehensive threat analysis, and supports multi-cloud integrations, focusing on broader cloud management capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Azure Front Door offers a streamlined deployment process integrated with other Azure services, ideal for those familiar with Microsoft. Its customer service efficiently addresses inquiries. F5 Distributed Cloud Services presents a modular deployment model fitting complex environments, requiring additional configuration but supported by attentive service for complex implementations. Azure’s simplicity contrasts with F5's handling of challenging setups.

Pricing and ROI: Azure Front Door has a low setup cost and delivers excellent ROI by enhancing application performance on a modest budget. F5 Distributed Cloud Services requires a higher upfront investment but provides long-term value through enhanced functionality and security. Azure is attractive for budget-conscious clients, while F5 is appealing for those seeking comprehensive feature sets.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Front Door vs. F5 Distributed Cloud Services Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Front Door vs. F5 Distributed Cloud Services

December 2025

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 20.0%, down from 21.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure Front Door is 13.1%, down from 20.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Distributed Cloud Services is 2.3%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

CDN Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Cloudflare	20.0%
Azure Front Door	13.1%
F5 Distributed Cloud Services	2.3%
Other	64.6%

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.

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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.

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Filip Mikulik

IT Analyst at Atlas.cz, a.s.

Protects web applications with comprehensive security features

All features are valuable. In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation. This is a comprehensive package for web application security. The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The overall experience with Cloudflare is positive, with a rating of eight out of ten."

"Its ease of integration with Office 365 and the fact that it's a good product compared to what I had before"

"It is easier to configure and develop documentation to see how we have configured firewalls."

"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 most valuable feature is its usability."

"New and innovative way to protect the client's data."

"The UI is good."

"The solution is very good at mitigating threats."

More Cloudflare pros

"You can assign as many web application firewall policies as you want to the same instance of Front Door."

"The web application firewall is a great feature."

"The tool is easy to use for beginners."

"The most valuable feature is that you can implement resources globally. It does not depend on location and ability or something like that. This is to connect clients around the world."

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

"I am impressed with the tool's integrations."

"Azure Front Door's advanced routing rules for traffic management are highly effective, allowing you to configure HTTP tags, change different header or header response values, configure origin domains, and add security to your Layer 7 using these routing rules."

"I find the technical support excellent, and I rate it a ten."

More Azure Front Door pros

"F5 is known for being the best load balancer in the market. Customers with an existing module can easily adopt additional modules without investing in new hardware."

"In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation."

"The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation."

Cons

"They lack a good way to manage DNS as a company, since everything is relegated to single account logins until you get to the higher levels. They have come out with a paid feature to remedy this, but I have not had a chance to fully review it yet to know if it fixes the access problem."

"Cloudflare could be improved by introducing a mid-tier pricing option."

"The reporting can definitely be improved to offer a lot more explanation on something that may have happened or has actually happened."

"The solution could work at being less expensive. It costs a lot to use it."

"Technical support is lacking."

"Cloudflare doesn't have a reverse lookup. We can only do a DNS lookup to get the IP address from the hostname. It doesn't work if you want to look up the hostname from an IPA address."

"Integration involving API with other products could be more user-friendly."

"Technical support is not well developed. While there are good engineers, Cloudflare does not offer hands-on technical support to fix customer problems but rather a self-service model."

More Cloudflare cons

"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 time."

"This is a relatively expensive solution."

"The user interface needs improvement as it is difficult to create the mapping to link the problem with your private address sources."

"There is room for improvement and they're working on it."

"The product needs to improve its latency."

"There could be improvements regarding its pricing for large-scale projects."

"I'm responsible for the governance and cost control of Azure. I'm not a specialist in any products and therefore I couldn't really speak effectively to features that are lacking or missing."

"There could be improvements regarding its pricing for large-scale projects."

More Azure Front Door cons

"The pricing could be adjusted to better meet the needs of typical customers in regions like Poland, where the product is considered too expensive."

"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF. There are some problems, mainly from the perspective of implementation and customer expectations, which sometimes differ from reality."

"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF."

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."

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

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

"The price of the solution is expensive."

"We are using the free version."

"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."

"A free version of the solution is available."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"It is on a pay-as-you-go basis."

"The solution is a bit expensive."

"The product is expensive."

"Considering the standard licensing of the tool, even though we have not checked the billing as of now, it might not be very costly."

"The transition to the premium tier has led to increased costs, making it more expensive than the classic tier."

"The pricing of the solution is good."

Information not available

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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

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

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	9
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	9

No data available

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...

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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...

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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

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 do you like most about Azure Front Door?

Rules Engine is a valuable feature.

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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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?

I am not involved in sales, so I do not deal with the pricing aspect directly. I give the cost of the solution a four...

See all answers

What needs improvement with F5 Distributed Cloud Services?

It's a long way to be perfect, of course, as with all solutions. The main issue is integration with other parts or pr...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?

There are two main use cases for Distributed Call Services: DDoS or Distributed attacks protection and WAF web applic...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 52% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

Radware DDoS vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

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Amazon CloudFront vs Azure Front Door

Compared 14% of the time

Akamai vs Azure Front Door

Compared 11% 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

More Azure Front Door Competitors

Akamai vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 15% of the time

F5 Silverline Managed Services vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 14% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 12% of the time

Akamai API Security vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 10% of the time

F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Compared 6% of the time

More F5 Distributed Cloud Services Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

December 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Azure Front Door

December 2025

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Buyer's Guide

CDN

November 2025

Download F5 Distributed Cloud Services product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

Azure Front-Door

No data available

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

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

F5 Distributed Cloud Services excel in enhancing security, optimizing web application delivery, and ensuring robust network performance. Users value its integrated Web Application Firewall, DDoS protection, global server load balancing, and intuitive management interface. It boosts organizational efficiency, reduces operational costs, and scales seamlessly, making it essential for businesses operating in distributed environments.

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Azure Front Door vs. F5 Distributed Cloud Services

December 2025

Free Report: Azure Front Door vs. F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Front Door vs. F5 Distributed Cloud Services and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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