Azure Front Door vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway comparison

Azure Front Door vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

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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:

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

6.0

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway enhances cost-control and efficiency, offering 30-40% savings and reducing staffing needs, despite cost assessment challenges.

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.

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

Co-Founder at arpa

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway significantly impacts our cost savings while maintaining higher performance.

IT Manager at Chong Hua Hospital

We have seen a return on investment in terms of time-saving and cost-saving by not creating our own infrastructure.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Azure Application Gateway report

Information Security and Compliance Officer at Carnation

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

6.3

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway's customer service is praised for responsiveness but criticized for delays and varying technical expertise.

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.

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

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

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

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

Co-Founder at arpa

There is room for improvement, specifically in paid support, by providing more direct contact.

Information Security and Compliance Officer at Carnation

I would rate Microsoft support as good because they have a very skilled technical support team in the background

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Azure Application Gateway report

Cloud Head at White-Spunner & Associates

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

7.5

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is praised for scalability and features, despite some challenges and integration flexibility with cloud platforms.

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

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch

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.

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.

Azure Consultant at cloudshift

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

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

Co-Founder at arpa

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is a very scalable product.

IT Manager at Chong Hua Hospital

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is a scalable solution.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Azure Application Gateway report

Cloud Head at White-Spunner & Associates

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

7.6

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is seen as stable and reliable, with most users rating it highly despite some configuration challenges.

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.

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

Co-Founder at arpa

The stability is good, and except for a few instances, I don't see the non-availability of Azure Cloud services.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Azure Application Gateway report

Cloud Head at White-Spunner & Associates

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.

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway struggles with high costs, complexity, poor integration, limited features, and insufficient support and documentation.

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.

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.

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

Co-Founder at arpa

There is room for improvement in terms of support, such as assigning agents directly for more straightforward engagement.

Information Security and Compliance Officer at Carnation

In future releases of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, I would like to see more AI functionalities and a better dashboard as well as some customizations.

IT Manager at Chong Hua Hospital

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway has room for improvement because it offers many features, but its configuration is a bit difficult, at least from the developer point of view.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Azure Application Gateway report

Cloud Head at White-Spunner & Associates

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.

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway's pricing is seen as both expensive and competitive, depending on features and integration benefits.

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.

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

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

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

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

Azure Consultant at cloudshift

Azure solutions are quite expensive.

Information Security and Compliance Officer at Carnation

When it comes to pricing for Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, I would rate it a seven out of ten.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Azure Application Gateway report

IT Manager at Chong Hua Hospital

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.

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway enhances traffic control and security with features like URL routing, autoscaling, and customizable policies.

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.

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

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

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

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.

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

Co-Founder at arpa

We are using it for some of the security features for our applications, particularly for securing traffic in transit with SSL.

Information Security and Compliance Officer at Carnation

The Web Application Firewall (WAF) in Microsoft Azure Application Gateway has been very effective in protecting applications from security threats.

IT Manager at Chong Hua Hospital

The gateway's Web Application Firewall feature enhances security as it is the first entry point to your network from the outside world.

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Azure Application Gateway report

Cloud Head at White-Spunner & Associates

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare

Q&A Highlights

Netanya Carmi

Content Manager at PeerSpot

Nov 07, 2021

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 traffic comes into the application. Azure Front Door is a very affordable global solution. It would be better, though, if the solution worked with multiple cloud defenders. Currently, it can only be used with the Azure cloud. The WAF feature with Azure Application Gateway is extremely valuable to us. It is a key feature we were looking for in a traffic load balancer. Azure Application Gateway integrates well with other solutions and we have found it to be excellent at catching attacks and stopping suspicious content. It is a regional solution that has no limitations in terms of scalability. We would like to see the monitoring improved, with better reporting capabilities. We would also like to see Azure Application Gateway allow for better filtering on traffic protocols; sometimes traffic that should have been allowed access has been cut off due to strict security presets. If we could see everything that was going on in the system, it would make the security center in Azure Application Gateway much better. Conclusion: These two solutions are similarly effective in the services and features they provide. They both offer great pricing and outstanding support. There are even some scenarios where Azure Application Gateway should be deployed behind Azure Front Door. The major difference is that Azure Front Door is a global service and Azure Application Gateway is a regional service, so they have very different capabilities. We were looking for a regional solution to satisfy our client and we found the added WAF feature of the Azure Application Gateway a much-desired feature for our team and our clients with specific regional needs. We also found that Azure Application Gateway integrated better with more solutions and met our client's needs more effectively.

Has helped manage client domains with streamlined access control and threat visibility

Featured Reviews

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

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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Ensures efficient traffic management and robust security while simplifying complex configurations

Cloud Head at White-Spunner & Associates

The best features for Microsoft Azure Application Gateway basically protect your application and provide security-related features and also divert the traffic to different instances of your application. I have used URL-based routing, which helps manage traffic efficiency. It is a bit hard to manage in the long run, but it does provide value. I have used the gateway's Web Application Firewall feature, which enhances security as it is the first entry point to your network from the outside world. It helps protect against unwanted requests and other threats that can be configured. Regarding the integration with Azure Active Directory, it helps with authentication processes to configure all the users or the groups. The monitoring capabilities on Azure provide insight into application performance and potential threats because monitoring comes with many products. On Azure, you have Azure Monitor itself to help you monitor the application by collecting data. You have Application Insights and the logging workspace on Azure. By combining these three, you can implement monitoring solutions on Azure applications. Auto-scaling is important because it helps in resource management for customers. Scaling is one of the key features of moving to cloud for any customer. During peak times or special events, such as retail site promotions, user load increases significantly. To address this, based on the number of incoming requests or server capacities such as CPU and memory, you can automatically identify these peak scenarios and configure either scaling up or down automatically based on certain parameters.

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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

15%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

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	22
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	23

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.

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...

What do you like most about Azure Front Door?

Rules Engine is a valuable feature.

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.

How does AWS WAF compare to Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?

Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon’s Web Service Web Application Firewall or Microsoft...

What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?

Application Gateway automatically redirects unwanted users and takes care of the security aspect. It also handles the...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Application Gateway?

Regarding the pricing for Microsoft Azure Application Gateway, I cannot provide details as I am not aware of the curr...

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 52% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

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

F5 Advanced WAF vs Azure Front Door

Compared 3% of the time

More Azure Front Door Competitors

F5 Advanced WAF vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 9% of the time

NetScaler vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 8% of the time

HAProxy vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 8% of the time

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 8% of the time

Kemp LoadMaster vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Competitors

Product Reports

Cloudflare

Download Cloudflare product report

Azure Front Door

Download Azure Front Door product report

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway

Download Microsoft Azure Application Gateway product report

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

Azure Front-Door

Azure Application Gateway, MS Azure Application Gateway

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

Azure Application Gateway is a web traffic load balancer that enables you to manage traffic to your web applications. Traditional load balancers operate at the transport layer (OSI layer 4 - TCP and UDP) and route traffic based on source IP address and port, to a destination IP address and port.

To learn more about our solution, ask questions, and share feedback, join our Microsoft Security, Compliance and Identity Community.

Microsoft

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

Lilly, AccuWeather, AIRFRANCE, Honeywell

Azure Front Door vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway