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F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs Windows Azure CDN comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

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
Sponsored
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)
F5 Distributed Cloud Services
Ranking in CDN
6th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (16th), API Security (8th)
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 F5 Distributed Cloud Services is 2.4%, up from 1.5% 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%
F5 Distributed Cloud Services2.4%
Windows Azure CDN2.8%
Other79.8%
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.
Mohan Janarthanan - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions
Centralized security has protected APIs and optimized multi‑cloud traffic management
F5 Distributed Cloud Services has been used for two years for DDoS protection, and there is a particular feature called API protection. Within API protection, there is malicious user mitigation, which is one particular technology that has been implemented. This is a kind of advanced bot attack prevention. Malicious user mitigation is an AI/ML-based technology that was introduced by the F5 team, and this particular MUG protects rate limiting. If some users are having anomaly detection or someone is trying to do a bot attack, it will create a CAPTCHA challenge for that particular user alone and not for all users. For example, if someone is trying to act as a rogue, it will create a CAPTCHA challenge in the backend system on that particular system, so they cannot try again and again at the same time. It is for a concurrent session, and it will give the CAPTCHA challenge. This MUG, malicious user mitigation, prevents bot attacks. F5 Distributed Cloud Services includes the real-time intelligence feature, which helps with threat response strategies from a threat intelligence perspective. For example, if there are geo-restrictions or geo-based restrictions, sometimes people may come in through proxy-based servers, and it will prevent that. The load balancing feature optimizes application performance. Observability is the basic piece where F5 got introduced. This observability piece provides end-to-end visibility on the application performance. It gives complete end-to-end visibility across network latency and application performance issues. Sometimes when it is getting more than 200 pages, it throws errors such as 300, 400, or whatever has been configured, including 500 errors. F5 Distributed Cloud Services has helped improve traffic management efficiency. Most applications are hosted in the Check Point and F5 firewall, F5 web application firewall, where applications and traffic management can be accessed in a single dashboard. Automated threat detection is a basic feature of F5 Distributed Cloud Services meant for that purpose. There are two scenarios with automated threat detection, which is provided by F5. It is a completely machine learning solution that came from the bot defense, and it automatically protects against sophisticated attacks.
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

"It's a reasonably priced solution that meets customers' needs and it's not too difficult to deploy."
"The API gives us the ability to remote control our DNS settings."
"Using the CDN of Cloudflare improved the speed significantly, reducing the page loading times to appropriate levels."
"The overall experience with Cloudflare is positive, with a rating of eight out of ten."
"The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security."
"CloudFlare has positively improved my site's speed, performance and security."
"New and innovative way to protect the client's data."
"The technical support on offer is excellent; they are very helpful and responsive, and we are quite happy with the level of service they provide to their customers."
"F5 Distributed Cloud Services provides a single unified console for security operations, network operations, and DevOps across all environments."
"Technical support from F5 is good compared to Cisco and HP."
"Elastic environments are the most valuable features because I can pull these apps and migrate the on-premises environment to the Distributed Cloud environment, and this capability is very strong and the security regarding the apps is really very powerful."
"In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation."
"The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation."
"F5 Distributed Cloud Services is the market leader in load balancers and manages traffic really well."
"I appreciate the UI of F5 Distributed Cloud Services and the backend cost, alongside the actual value proposition that they provide with the load balancer, which is excellent."
"F5 is known for being the best load balancer in the market. Customers with an existing module can easily adopt additional modules without investing in new hardware."
"One of the tool's best features is its ability to handle edge cases. For instance, we encountered a situation where we needed to remove certain files from public access. The solution offered a purge feature that allowed us to remove these files. This feature ensured that the files were deleted from all edge servers. Subsequently, we were able to upload new versions of the files."
"The geolocation feature is very important because many colleagues travel worldwide and need to access information from anywhere. The product has improved security."
"We use the product for faster content delivery with low latency."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that one can access Windows Azure CDN from anywhere."
"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."
 

Cons

"Integration involving API with other products could be more user-friendly."
"The analytics, basically the dashboard, doesn't have much to it."
"The integration of LLMs on the dashboard is something that is needed in the tool."
"The tool needs to improve caching of servers. The product needs to include PFX certificate as well."
"There might be helpful if there was some web application firewall feature."
"I would like Cloudflare to offer a dedicated account manager for large enterprise clients like us."
"The reporting can definitely be improved to offer a lot more explanation on something that may have happened or has actually happened."
"Cloudflare should add more documentation and pricing to the cloud version."
"For small players, it is completely not worth it."
"Last year there was a downtime of 30 minutes across the cloud distributed console, and that was the only impact observed."
"One area where F5 Distributed Cloud Services can be improved is in API security, which can be enhanced."
"The worst experience is that with so many solutions available, it is very complicated to know all of the solution modules, and the offers from F5 Distributed Cloud Services are vast."
"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF. There are some problems, mainly from the perspective of implementation and customer expectations, which sometimes differ from reality."
"The pricing could be adjusted to better meet the needs of typical customers in regions like Poland, where the product is considered too expensive."
"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."
"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."
"We have experienced issues with switch connectivity."
"Windows Azure CDN should lower its prices."
"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."
"Exploring shared access solutions with cloud accounts would be a beneficial choice."
"I aim to enhance the reporting."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."
"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."
"We are using the free version."
"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."
"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"I believe their performance has improved, but I'd like to refrain from discussing the pricing aspect related to the cloud. The pricing, in my opinion, could be simplified, and I think they should consider reevaluating the pricing for support, as it can be quite high. At times, this cost can make it challenging to choose CARFAGuard or opt for the support."
"The product's pricing is cheap."
Information not available
"The pricing is extremely high, almost 9 out of 10."
"The tool's pricing is cheap."
"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 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."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten."
"The solution's price is above the medium range."
"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."
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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%
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
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 Business5
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
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 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 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 F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
F5 Distributed Cloud Services is affordable. I think it is very affordable. I do not think it is expensive.
What needs improvement with F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
One area where F5 Distributed Cloud Services can be improved is in API security, which can be enhanced.Specifically, ...
What is your primary use case for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
My main use case for F5 Distributed Cloud Services is WAF protection.I am using F5 Distributed Cloud Services primari...
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 co...
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 re...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
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.
Information Not Available
NORAD, Agreeya Mobility
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs. Windows Azure CDN and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.