Azure Front Door vs F5 Silverline Managed Services comparison

Microsoft and F5 are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Microsoft is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.9, while F5 is ranked #21 with an average rating of 9.0. 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 Jan 1, 2025

F5 Silverline Managed Services and Azure Front Door compete in the content delivery and security space. Azure Front Door is often seen as superior due to its extensive feature set, although F5 Silverline is more preferred for pricing and customer support.

Features: F5 Silverline Managed Services provides robust security with DDoS protection, application traffic monitoring, and policy automation. Azure Front Door offers global load balancing, integrated web application firewall, and advanced traffic management for dynamic acceleration and scalability.

Room for Improvement: F5 Silverline could enhance flexibility in feature integration, broader global traffic capabilities, and improved automation for policy application. Azure Front Door's complexity in setup, less personalized customer support, and higher associated costs are areas that could be refined.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: F5 Silverline Managed Services is straightforward to deploy with exceptional customer service, appealing to companies needing hands-on assistance. Azure Front Door offers deeper integration within the Azure ecosystem but has a more complex setup process and less personalized customer service.

Pricing and ROI: F5 Silverline Managed Services offers competitive pricing with strong ROI by balancing cost and robust support. Azure Front Door, though potentially more expensive, justifies its cost with significant ROI through scalability and integration with a broad range of Azure services.

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

Buyer's Guide

Azure Front Door vs. F5 Silverline Managed Services

December 2025

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Helped 879,259 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:

ROI

Sentiment score

6.5

Cloudflare users experienced increased performance, security, and cost-effectiveness, leading to improved loyalty and revenue despite difficult ROI calculations.

Sentiment score

6.9

Azure Front Door offers ROI through cost reduction, quick setup, and simplified management, prompting proactive adoption amid system phase-out.

Sentiment score

6.6

F5 Silverline Managed Services offers effective cybersecurity solutions, with variable ROI perceptions and appreciation for time and cost savings.

For the small project I was working on, using the basic tier provided a huge improvement at zero cost.

Wellington Malagutti

Security Specialist at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

In terms of return on investment with Cloudflare, it costs my time to set them up, but basically once they're set up, it's done.

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

Azure Front Door offers a quick return on investment once it is set up.

Bernard Parinas

Co-Founder at arpa

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Front Door report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Silverline Managed Services report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

7.0

Cloudflare's customer service is quick, but technical support feedback is mixed, with improvement needed in responsiveness and detailed assistance.

Sentiment score

7.1

Azure Front Door's customer service is mixed; some praise responsiveness and documentation, others find problem-solving quality inconsistent.

Sentiment score

6.1

F5 Silverline's customer support is responsive but varies; users praise personalization but note challenges with escalations and response times.

Cloudflare does not offer hands-on technical support to fix customer problems but rather a self-service model.

reviewer1245303

Senior Consultant CDN at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

I would rate the technical support with Cloudflare as excellent every time I've had to call them.

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

I have primarily worked not with the tool's customer support but with the product's sales engineers and technical sales engineers, who seem to know their stuff.

reviewer2541525

Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

I am able to set up a critical call with Microsoft, and they respond quickly to tickets with the highest severity.

Bernard Parinas

Co-Founder at arpa

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Front Door report

Their support team is responsive, and they deliver timely updates, addressing any glitches promptly.

Ricky Makkar

Senior Network Security Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

They resolve the issues by joining me to fix them.

AhmedMansour

Design & Delivery Senior Network Security Architect at Qiddiya Investment Company

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Silverline Managed Services report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

8.1

Users praise Cloudflare for seamless scalability, effective traffic management, easy upgrades, and robust global infrastructure without disruptions.

Sentiment score

7.1

Azure Front Door offers scalable, reliable global capabilities, highly rated by users, though it may become costly with extensive use.

Sentiment score

7.8

F5 Silverline offers scalable managed services, efficiently handling enterprise demands with flexible expansion and seamless capacity management.

It is a SaaS tool, but the fact that they have workloads deployed across the world proves that it is a highly scalable tool.

reviewer2541525

Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

The tool offers very good performance, even during high-traffic periods.

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch

Engineer at SITMEXICO

I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.

Prajith Chowthee

Independent Consultant at Unaikui

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

I find that Front Door can become expensive for large-scale projects with more transactions and users.

Mohamed Amin Nasri

Azure Consultant at cloudshift

I consider the scalability of Azure Front Door to be strong.

Bernard Parinas

Co-Founder at arpa

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Front Door report

F5 Silverline Managed Services is scalable enough without observed limitations.

Ricky Makkar

Senior Network Security Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

The solution is fully scalable, and I would give it a rating of ten on a scale of one to ten for scalability.

AhmedMansour

Design & Delivery Senior Network Security Architect at Qiddiya Investment Company

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Silverline Managed Services report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.6

Cloudflare is highly rated for stability and uptime, with few past issues, especially on higher-tier plans.

Sentiment score

8.4

Azure Front Door is praised for stability and performance, with minor DNS issues and advantages in updates via Azure Portal.

Sentiment score

7.3

F5 Silverline delivers stable performance with strong monitoring, minimal downtime, effective support, and high stability ratings despite occasional issues.

I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.

Prajith Chowthee

Independent Consultant at Unaikui

The service is very stable with no impacts during high-traffic periods.

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch

Engineer at SITMEXICO

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

I rate Azure Front Door's stability a nine because it is easy to make updates through Azure Portal.

Bernard Parinas

Co-Founder at arpa

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Front Door report

They offer regular updates, and overall, I would rate the stability of the solution as nine out of ten.

Ricky Makkar

Senior Network Security Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Silverline Managed Services report

Room For Improvement

Enhancements needed in Cloudflare: analytics, CDN latency, API integration, user support, DNS, pricing, documentation, server coverage, WAF, and cache.

Azure Front Door needs improvements in multi-cloud support, pricing, user interface, DDoS protection, and enhanced functionalities as per feedback.

F5 Silverline needs improved pricing, integration, user interfaces, automation, API, and enhanced features like AI and bot detection.

Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor.

Bilal Mujahid

Managed Services Manager at Adapture Technology Group

Areas like how assessment, discovery, and payload are dealt with and how it all comes into your organization can be considered when trying to make suggestions to Cloudflare for improvements.

Darryl Wethington

Senior Cloud Solution Architect at Integrated Technology Solution Group (ITSG)

There are some performance considerations when it comes to dynamic content that involves fetching data from databases or using APIs.

Animesh.Kumar

Senior Solutions Architect at Think Power Solutions

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

If I could use Azure Front Door with private IP addresses, it would be more beneficial.

Mohamed Amin Nasri

Azure Consultant at cloudshift

It relies on the WAF module where users must configure rate-limiting rules, as it does not automatically sense malicious spikes in traffic.

reviewer2226693

Architect at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees

The only significant adjustment required is with URL set parameters that need to be passed for an existing domain.

Bernard Parinas

Co-Founder at arpa

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Front Door report

Introducing preemptive support prompts would reduce the manual effort required for creating policies or blocking specific IPs.

Ricky Makkar

Senior Network Security Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Improvements could include the creation of highly optimized profiles.

AhmedMansour

Design & Delivery Senior Network Security Architect at Qiddiya Investment Company

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Silverline Managed Services report

Setup Cost

Cloudflare offers scalable pricing, from free to enterprise plans, providing significant value especially for mid-sized companies.

Azure Front Door offers flexible, tiered pricing praised for balancing cost and features, though premium levels may seem expensive.

Enterprise users view F5 Silverline pricing as competitive but costly, with room for negotiation and flexible licensing options.

I find it to be cheap.

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch

Engineer at SITMEXICO

I rate the product’s pricing a five out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive.

Animesh.Kumar

Senior Solutions Architect at Think Power Solutions

The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive.

reviewer2541525

Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

Azure Front Door is cheaper for small projects, companies, or applications compared to using separate tools.

Mohamed Amin Nasri

Azure Consultant at cloudshift

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Front Door report

On a scale where ten is very expensive, I would rate the pricing as three.

Ricky Makkar

Senior Network Security Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

The solution is expensive

AhmedMansour

Design & Delivery Senior Network Security Architect at Qiddiya Investment Company

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Silverline Managed Services report

Valuable Features

Cloudflare enhances performance and security with CDN caching, DDoS protection, and an easy-to-use dashboard, benefiting many users.

Azure Front Door enhances security, performance, and global reach with features like SSL offloading, load-balancing, and traffic analytics.

F5 Silverline Managed Services provides easy setup, robust security features, excellent scalability, and effective DDoS protection with comprehensive reporting.

The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security.

Darryl Wethington

Senior Cloud Solution Architect at Integrated Technology Solution Group (ITSG)

Techniques like minification and image compression reduce the size of assets, leading to better performance and faster user load times.

Animesh.Kumar

Senior Solutions Architect at Think Power Solutions

The solution has been able to compare it to the market, and I think the product has taken great strides in automating quite a bit of things, and they use a lot of AI.

reviewer2541525

Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

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

Mohamed Amin Nasri

Azure Consultant at cloudshift

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.

Bernard Parinas

Co-Founder at arpa

For more quotes and insights, download the Azure Front Door report

It allows for centralized management of certificates, protecting applications from top ten attacks like SQL injection and cross-site scripting.

AhmedMansour

Design & Delivery Senior Network Security Architect at Qiddiya Investment Company

The monitoring tab displays GET and POST requests in a readable format, making it accessible even to non-tech-savvy individuals.

Ricky Makkar

Senior Network Security Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the F5 Silverline Managed Services report

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare

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.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

Ricky Makkar

Senior Network Security Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Manages network threats and supports application control with ease

The best advantage of F5 Silverline Managed Services is that it is easy to use. The admin guide they provide is easy to understand and allows for implementation within a few days. The traffic manager and the monitoring tool are valuable as well. The monitoring tab displays GET and POST requests in a readable format, making it accessible even to non-tech-savvy individuals. It offers effective reports and monitoring capabilities.

Read full review

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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

Financial Services Firm

18%

Insurance Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	8

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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

Is Citrix ADC (formerly Netscaler) the best ADC to use and if not why?

For ADC, any ADC can do a good job. But in case if you want to add WAF functionality to the same ADC hardware you hav...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Silverline Managed Services?

The solution is quite reasonably priced, with costs being lower in comparison to competitors. On a scale where ten is...

See all answers

What needs improvement with F5 Silverline Managed Services?

Automating processes could enhance F5 Silverline Managed Services. For example, introducing preemptive support prompt...

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

Myra Security DDoS Protection vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

Radware DDoS vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

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

Azure Firewall vs Azure Front Door

Compared 4% of the time

More Azure Front Door Competitors

F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 20% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 8% of the time

NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 7% of the time

Arbor DDoS vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 6% of the time

AWS WAF vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 4% of the time

More F5 Silverline Managed Services Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

December 2025

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

Azure Front Door

December 2025

Download Azure Front Door product report

Buyer's Guide

F5 Silverline Managed Services

December 2025

Download F5 Silverline Managed Services product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

Azure Front-Door

F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall, F5 Silverline DDoS Protection

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's Silverline Managed Services is a SaaS solution delivering DDoS protection, managed Web Application Firewall (WAF) services, and managed Shape Security Fraud and Anti-bot solutions.

Silverline services include 24x7 access to F5's Security Operations Center (SOC). F5's expert security professionals use F5 products with state-of-the-art security tools to ensure the best protection possible. As an add-on to Silverline DDoS or WAF services, Silverline Threat Intelligence integrates dynamic lists of threatening IP addresses to give context for policy decisions.

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

City Bank, Ricacorp Properties, Miele, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office

Buyer's Guide

Azure Front Door vs. F5 Silverline Managed Services

December 2025

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