Cloudflare vs Microsoft Azure Application Gateway comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cloudflare and Microsoft Azure Application Gateway based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Cloudflare vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Report (Updated: February 2023).
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Centralized, full-featured DNS.""We're using dynamic components to build flexible pages to create and manage Git merge requests for code and reviews.""The solution is very good at mitigating threats.""The most valuable feature is the web application firewall.""New and innovative way to protect the client's data.""Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.""Cloudflare is a security SaaS provider that provides security and protects us from any application layer attack.""There are key things that are used for our enterprise customers, such as Lambda and DNS."

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"The solution is easy to set up.""WAF feature replicates the firewall.""The solution provides great automation and it is easy to upgrade service.""I find Application Gateway’s WAF module valuable because it helps prevent layer 7 attacks.""The pricing is quite good.""It is a scalable solution...The installation phase of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is very easy.""The most valuable feature of the solution is the web application firewall (WAF).""The product's initial setup phase was easy."

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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.""Sometimes their more advanced caching tools can cause higher first-byte times and problems with JavaScript.""The pricing could be improved.""It would be beneficial for us if Cloudflare could offer a scrubbing solution. This would involve taking a snapshot of my website and keeping it live during a DDoS attack, ensuring uninterrupted service for our users. DDoS attacks are typically short in duration, and having Cloudflare maintain the site's availability from its secure network would enhance the overall user experience. I would appreciate it if Cloudflare could consider implementing this feature. Many organizations already utilize similar capabilities in their CDN platforms, where a static snapshot of the web page is displayed during DDoS attacks. In terms of features, Cloudflare needs to enhance its resilience and stay more focused on adopting new technologies. For instance, solutions like F5 XC Box, Access Solution, and Distributed Cloud Solution have impressive features, and Cloudflare should strive to match and exceed those capabilities. There's a need for improvement in areas like AI-based DDoS attacks and Layer 7 WAF features. Cloudflare should prioritize enhancements in areas such as behavioral DDoS and protection against SQL injection attacks, considering the prevalent trend of public exposure to the internet for business reasons. Overall, Cloudflare needs to invest more in advancing its feature set.""Although I think it's quite good, it doesn't provide me with all the features I would expect to have if I were using Imperva.""It should confirm audit findings of the assigned area with auditees to ensure that the audit conclusions are based on an accurate understanding of the issues.""The reporting can definitely be improved to offer a lot more explanation on something that may have happened or has actually happened.""For the free and Pro plans, Cloudflare could use a simple bot to provide information to users. This would improve support, especially for less advanced users who utilize the free components."

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"The monitoring on the solution could be better.""The pricing of the solution is a bit high. The solution should offer different pricing systems.""In the next release, the solution could improve the integration with Service Mesh and other Azure Security Services.""The support can be improved when you are configuring the system rules. The Disaster Recovery feature can be added in the next release. The price of the solution can be reduced a bit.""It could be more stable, and support could be better. It would also be better if they offered more features. For example, it lacks security features. Before we used another English solution, and we realized that some of the rules were not set up correctly and passed through the Application Gateway's English controllers. But the problem, in this case, is if you send ten rules, for example, six rules hit some issues. IP address blocking could be better. The rules, for example, don't work properly. If you have one issue, one rule or another rule will not work. This sounds like total madness to me.""Application Gateway’s limitation is that the private and the public endpoint cannot use the same port.""The security of the product could be adjusted.""The solution should provide more security for certificate-based services so that we can implement more security on that."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."
  • "I think the pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."
  • "There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
  • "The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."
  • "We don't have any issues with the price."
  • "The price is reasonable."
  • "The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
  • "It's a premium model. You can start at zero and work your way up to the enterprise model, which has a very high pricing level."
  • More Cloudflare Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "It is not expensive."
  • "Every solution comes with a license and cost. Microsoft provides the license and the total cost is for the maintenance every year."
  • "Between v1 and v2, there is a lot of change in the pricing. It is very costly compared to AWS."
  • "There is some additional cost, such as extended support."
  • "The cost is not an issue."
  • "The solution is reasonably priced compared to other solutions."
  • "The pricing is based on how much you use the solution."
  • "The solution is paid monthly. The solution is highly expensive."
  • More Microsoft Azure Application Gateway Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Comparison Review
    Anonymous User
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GRE tunnels. We have decreased site load times on Mobile 3G from 8 to 1,6 seconds by… more »
    Top Answer:Smaller businesses have seen great ROI due to the low investment and strong performance.
    Top Answer:Cloudflare's biggest plan for initial businesses is $200 per month, and if you're an enterprise, you'll likely exceed that on either AWS or Cloudflare itself. For comparison, Akamai's minimum billing… more »
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer:Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon’s Web Service Web Application Firewall or Microsoft Azure Application Gateway web application firewall software was the better fit for… more »
    Top Answer:We can control what rules should be used and what should be disabled.
    Ranking
    Views
    9,262
    Comparisons
    7,975
    Reviews
    15
    Average Words per Review
    529
    Rating
    8.3
    Views
    7,571
    Comparisons
    6,479
    Reviews
    20
    Average Words per Review
    366
    Rating
    7.5
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Azure Application Gateway, MS Azure Application Gateway
    Learn More
    Overview

    Cloudflare is a highly-regarded Content Delivery Network (CDN) and a Distribution Denial of Service (DDoS) protection solution. The robust global cloud platform that is Cloudflare ensures users are able to connect to the internet quickly, securely, and reliably. Cloudflare is one of the world's largest networks in the marketplace today. Using Cloudflare, businesses, educational entities, NGOs, vloggers, bloggers, and anyone else with an internet presence can use the solution and experience more secure, faster websites and applications.

    Currently, there are millions of internet locations on Cloudflare, and the Cloudflare network continues to grow every day by the thousands. The solution is able to fulfill the requests for millions of websites seamlessly and serves on average 45 million HTTP requests per second.

    Cloudflare has safe, secure data centers in close to 300 cities worldwide to ensure every client request is filled as quickly as possible. It is Cloudflare’s edge network that makes this possible by keeping content and other services as close to each client as possible, so the information requests are always only seconds away.

    Many organizations that work in democracy, civil society, human rights, or the arts are able to access Cloudflare highest levels of protection for free via Project Galileo. Additionally, official election websites can be secured from hacking and fraud through Cloudflare’s Project Athenian, also at no additional cost.

    Cloudflare can also help organizations of all sizes develop a robust zero-trust strategy to ensure the highest levels of productivity and profitability. Employees, stakeholders, and end-users have a greater level of satisfaction and overall improved user experience, which can, in turn, result in higher revenues and overall ROI. Zero-trust and BYOD ( bring your own device) access ensure end-users and employees always have the best resources and technology available to them at all times.



    Cloudflare Benefits

    Cloudflare has many benefits. Some of its most valuable benefits include:

    • Faster load times
    • Robust DNS security
    • Intuitive cloud Web Application Firewall (WAF)
    • Free universal SSL
    • Image Enhancement
    • Automatic Browser Caching
    • Next-generation cloud load balancer
    • Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
    • Rate Limiting
    • Minification
    • Zero-trust capabilities 
    • Cost-effective
    • Reduced carbon footprint

    Reviews from Real Users

    “Many websites require an SSL certificate because they sell stuff and want SSL. Cloudflare comes with an SSL certificate built in. It's automatic. You sign yourself up for Cloudflare, and an SSL certificate automatically protects your website. If you have a connection between your website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host, you don't necessarily need a certificate.”  Spencer M., Owner at Tech Exchange

    “What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering, so it's a valuable tool.” Daniel P., Network engineer at Ufinet

    The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is the GUI. You are able to control the solution very well through the interface. There is a lot of functionality that is embedded in the service.” A PeerSpot user who is a Competence Center Manager at a tech services company. 

    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.

    Sample Customers
    Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.
    Lilly, AccuWeather, AIRFRANCE, Honeywell
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm23%
    Comms Service Provider23%
    Marketing Services Firm9%
    Engineering Company9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization37%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Comms Service Provider5%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company28%
    Comms Service Provider20%
    Healthcare Company8%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Government7%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business64%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise23%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise45%
    Large Enterprise36%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business40%
    Midsize Enterprise10%
    Large Enterprise50%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business21%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise64%
    Buyer's Guide
    Cloudflare vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway
    February 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway and other solutions. Updated: February 2023.
    765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Cloudflare is ranked 1st in Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection with 55 reviews while Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is ranked 4th in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) with 38 reviews. Cloudflare is rated 8.4, while Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is rated 7.2. The top reviewer of Cloudflare writes "It's easy to set up because you point the DNS to it, and it's working in under 15 minutes". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Azure Application Gateway writes "High stability with built-in rules that reduce alerts and are easy to configure". Cloudflare is most compared with Akamai, Azure Front Door, Imperva DDoS, AWS Shield and Arbor DDoS, whereas Microsoft Azure Application Gateway is most compared with Azure Front Door, Citrix NetScaler, F5 Advanced WAF, Cloudflare Web Application Firewall and F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM). See our Cloudflare vs. Microsoft Azure Application Gateway report.

    We monitor all Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.