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Cloudflare vs Windows Azure CDN comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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 CDN
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
WAN Optimization (4th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (9th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (2nd), Managed DNS (1st), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (5th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th)
Windows Azure CDN
Ranking in CDN
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 15.0%, down from 21.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Windows Azure CDN is 2.8%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CDN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cloudflare15.0%
Windows Azure CDN2.8%
Other82.2%
CDN
 

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.
AA
Consultant at NatWest Group
Our data is cached faster and sites load faster
We use the solution for hosting static web applications. We use it to cache images or files We mostly distribute images through the CDN. Earlier, we were directly caching from the server to CDN. Since we started using the solution, there has been a significant improvement in the response time.…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I have used it to bring enterprise-grade features to my small business clients at low or no cost."
"The technical support is good."
"The web application firewall brought us good security and a view of the accesses/blocks of the entire domain and subdomain that were accessed both by region (country) and IPs."
"If it was not for CloudFlare, I would have to hire a dedicated resource to manage all this for me."
"The API gives us the ability to remote control our DNS settings."
"So far I use free tier and happy with it."
"The solution automatically detects and responds to certain types of traffic based on geolocation."
"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."
"It is a stable solution."
"One of the most valuable aspects is the capability to store extensive datasets and objects in the cloud, enabling their download through shared access signatures."
"The geolocation feature is very important because many colleagues travel worldwide and need to access information from anywhere. The product has improved security."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that one can access Windows Azure CDN from anywhere."
"The most valuable feature of Windows Azure CDN is its effectiveness."
"One of the best features of Windows Azure CDN is that it has integrated WAF; it is not only CDN alone and it is a very smart and capable WAF."
"I like that CDN offers a routing feature."
"I enjoy engaging in discussions with colleagues possessing unique expertise. I leverage the three platforms—Azure, Google, and AWS extensively. This allows me to offer diverse solutions to customers, commonly referred to as a multi-cloud approach."
 

Cons

"Perhaps I would ask that they improve the Free plan and allow us to use it with any TLD (certain ones are not allowed)."
"In the last two years, there has been a certain amount of downtime when using the VDM."
"For the services I am using, it is a bit expensive."
"It would be helpful if the solution could continue evolving to compete with the other solutions on the market."
"It looks like they don't support as many TLDs as other registrars, but since they are very new as a registrar, I expect this may improve soon."
"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."
"The documentation could improve for Cloudflare DNS."
"I would like Cloudflare to offer a dedicated account manager for large enterprise clients like us."
"I believe Windows Azure CDN can improve monitoring and measuring overall end-user performance. Providing monitoring tools or agents that can be integrated into our pages would be highly beneficial. Setting up a custom domain with Windows Azure CDN involves proving domain ownership, which can take some time. The process is relatively straightforward if your DNS or domain registrar is already integrated with Microsoft. However, the verification process may be more time-consuming if you use a different service provider."
"They should include configuration for cache rules."
"Azure is continuously improving its CDN but the documentation should be up-to-date."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"I aim to enhance the reporting."
"Windows Azure CDN should lower its prices."
"There were a few bugs that were very disappointing. So, that is a part of the reason why we started using Fastly."
"The high price of Windows Azure CDN is an area of concern where improvements can be made."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."
"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."
"In terms of licensing costs, we don't pay for licensing for Cloudflare. We only establish communication, then for peering, Cloudflare takes care of the cross-connection in different data centers."
"We are using the free version."
"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"The pricing of the solution depends on usage and varies based on the company's needs. If you want additional features like advanced logging, it will be pricier. However, it could be cheaper if you don't need those features. It all depends on the resources and requirements."
"The tool's pricing is cheap."
"The solution's price is above the medium range."
"The solution's price depends on how much traffic you have. So, it was okay for us. Payments are to be made on a monthly basis since one has to pay for what they used."
"It comes at a relatively affordable cost."
"I rate the price of Windows Azure CDN a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is high."
"The pricing is extremely high, almost 9 out of 10."
"The tool's pricing is cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

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 Business7
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise6
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Windows Azure CDN?
In terms of pricing for Windows Azure CDN and the whole Microsoft products, you cannot compare networking alone or compute alone; you need a full solution.
What needs improvement with Windows Azure CDN?
It is not a weakness of Windows Azure CDN; rather, it is the fact that it is outside Saudi Arabia, leading to some regulation issues. For computing, they could make a flex engine similar to other p...
What is your primary use case for Windows Azure CDN?
We are using Windows Azure CDN, Azure AI capability for a translator, Azure Front Door for CDN, and from Microsoft's side, we are selling many Microsoft E5 licenses. We are using it for our client.
 

Comparisons

 

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.
NORAD, Agreeya Mobility
Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare vs. Windows Azure CDN and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,344 professionals have used our research since 2012.