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Cloudflare vs Palo Alto Networks DNS Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), WAN Optimization (4th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (9th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (2nd), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (15th)
Palo Alto Networks DNS Secu...
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Domain Name System (DNS) Security category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 6.2%, up from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks DNS Security is 9.8%, up from 8.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Domain Name System (DNS) Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Palo Alto Networks DNS Security9.8%
Cloudflare6.2%
Other84.0%
Domain Name System (DNS) Security
 

Featured Reviews

M.A. Faisal - PeerSpot reviewer
General Manager at bKash Limited
Advanced protection has secured critical web workloads and provides clear traffic visibility
From a security perspective, there remains a security loophole, as some browsers in the market can bypass the Turnstile solution, which requires approximately 40 seconds to do so. From a performance perspective, this is acceptable. We also tried Google reCAPTCHA, and that can also be bypassed. From a security perspective, I would say neither solution is completely secured. Regarding uptime, we have faced a couple of incidents due to Cloudflare in recent years, so I cannot say we receive 100% uptime for our region. We sometimes face challenges, including downtime and other issues. As a result, we are not receiving 100% uptime from Cloudflare's solution. Since most of our customers are in this region, we need alternatives. We need something more competitive than Cloudflare. Unfortunately, in Bangladesh, Cloudflare has three points of presence already, and we cannot find any other solution provider in Bangladesh as an alternative, which presents another challenge. Competitor solutions have more attack signatures, which ensure better security compared to Cloudflare's predefined configurations. Customers do not have options to modify any configuration parameters in Cloudflare, whereas other competitor solutions, such as F5 Distributed Cloud, allow customers to tune configurations according to their requirements. Cloudflare could improve in this area. Additionally, regarding visibility, Cloudflare has static visibility, but they could adopt dynamic graph features for their customers.
Andres Briceño - PeerSpot reviewer
Cybersecurity Coordinator at Pronaca
Comprehensive security protects networks effectively while support excels
The main feature of the Palo Alto Networks DNS Security protects our network from external attacks, malware, and data theft. I use the DNS Security's real-time threat intelligence, as it's a feature that works in real-time in the firewalls. Because we configured this real-time help feature in our firewalls, this feature works during internal navigation to the internet. If we have a virus or malware in our network, the firewall detects this threat and protects our network. DNS Security protects us against threats, malware, and malicious domains or malicious navigation to the internet. The threat analytics has helped us because it works together with the SOC analytics and the platform manager, so this has affected our approach to zero-day vulnerabilities and threat updates. The reporting and analytics tools help provide insights into trends and threat vectors. We configured a dashboard where we can see all threat preventions and DNS Securities. If the SOC analytics detect threats or anomalies in the dashboard, we work quickly to prevent these threats.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The aggressive caching and DDOS mitigation are the most valuable features offered by Cloudflare."
"Cloudflare has many features."
"Their free account offers an awful lot of functionality and savings alone, before you get on to the minimal $20 a month for a Pro account which comes with its own great list of features."
"We're partners with Cloudflare; this solution is the best product and it does not charge you for any kind of attack on your traffic, only for good traffic, and it can mitigate up to 30 TBPS of DDoS attacks."
"From a technical point of view, Cloudflare is the best CDN."
"Cloudflare makes it easier for me to handle and set up DNS for multiple users and multiple clients, and basically go in and access their account, make the changes they need, and it's a one-stop shop."
"CloudFlare has positively improved my site's speed, performance and security."
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is its global reach and it is always evolving."
"The stability is excellent and the product is very mature."
"The most valuable features of the solution are DNSSEC and the domain generation algorithm."
"This product is used in our organization to prevent all of the potential threats that we expect from the internet, including everything that can reach the end-user from the internet, and it is beneficial for us because we are in the process of migrating everything from on-premises to the cloud."
"DNS sinkhole is a valuable feature."
"When comparing other cloud-based DNS security solutions to this one I have found the main beneficial feature in this solution to be we do not need to change our architecture."
"The solution's most valuable features are data exfiltration and DNS tunneling."
"The most valuable features of DNS Security include its ability to protect against command and control traffic, anonymizers, newly registered domains, and DNS tunneling."
"The support team has good knowledge about the solution."
 

Cons

"If they improve on the placement of their data centers, it would be better. I'm living in a remote area. I would like to connect to them without any kind of lag."
"At the end, it is worth than giving your house keys to the NSA."
"I would like Cloudflare to offer a dedicated account manager for large enterprise clients like us."
"I believe they currently have this feature, but there will most likely be integration with APIs so we can control some features through API."
"Access to the solution's dashboards is not intended for a service company. You are practically blind, and to validate a problem, you must view the customer's screen."
"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."
"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."
"Sometimes their more advanced caching tools can cause higher first-byte times and problems with JavaScript."
"The product should provide email protection."
"I have found customer service to be quite problematic. The support is often outsourced, leading to delayed response times."
"The pricing of the Palo Alto Networks DNS Security is very high."
"With Palo Alto Networks DNS Security, sometimes the DNS clients don't work well, and they get disconnected, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The solution can capture more market if made more cost-competitive than Infoblox or Cisco Umbrella."
"Palo Alto should explore agentless approaches to integrate DNS Security more easily and efficiently."
"There should be an on-premise version of this solution."
"We would like to have cloud-based management."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."
"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."
"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."
"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."
"The price is reasonable."
"The product's pricing is cheap."
"I give the price a five out of ten."
"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
"There aren't many vendors offering DNS security solutions, but generally, Palo Alto subscriptions tend to be more expensive than other security vendors."
"Palo Alto Networks DNS Security is an expensive product. I rate the product's pricing an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten points are expensive."
"The solution's pricing is equal to Cisco AMP or Cisco Umbrella."
"The product is expensive. My company makes payments on a quarterly basis towards the solution's costs."
"There is an annual license for the solution and I am satisfied with the pricing."
"If one is very cheap and ten is very expensive, I rate the tool's price as two."
"It is not an expensive solution."
"The product is expensive compared to Fortinet."
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909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise26
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise10
 

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 GRE tunnels. We have decreased site load times on Mobile 3G from 8 to 1,6 seconds ...
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 that offers great redundancy and advanced security with built-in unmetered and ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare DNS?
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Cloudflare are a bit on the higher side overall.
What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks DNS Security?
DNS Security protects us against threats, malware, and malicious domains or malicious navigation to the internet, which is where it can be improved the best. Palo Alto helps us with support, so I d...
What is your primary use case for Palo Alto Networks DNS Security?
I can describe my use cases for Palo Alto Networks DNS Security, which is used for protecting our network. I use this product, Palo Alto Networks DNS Security, with Palo Alto firewalls.
What advice do you have for others considering Palo Alto Networks DNS Security?
I don't have experience with Palo Alto Networks AutoFocus. Regarding the DNS Security, I have firewalls with the DNS Security module in the firewall. DNS Security is something we configure in our f...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.
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Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare vs. Palo Alto Networks DNS Security and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.