IBM Cloud Video vs Windows Azure CDN comparison

IBM and Microsoft are both solutions in the CDN category. IBM is ranked #31, while Microsoft is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.4. IBM holds a 0.1% mindshare in CDN, compared to Microsoft’s 3.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Cloud Video and Windows Azure CDN based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare, Microsoft, Akamai and others in CDN.

To learn more, read our detailed CDN Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

CDN

April 2025

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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:

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the CDN category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 22.3%, up from 21.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Cloud Video is 0.1%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Windows Azure CDN is 3.0%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

CDN

Featured Reviews

Spencer Malmad

Owner at Tech Exchange

It's easy to set up because you point the DNS to it, and it's working in under 15 minutes

Cloudflare is highly scalable. Cloudflare is a system with a web portal that the end users like me see. It's a console where we can adjust the DNS, caching, and security features all in that console. Cloudflare owns thousands of servers across the world that cache the data. It's a powerful solution. When clients sign up for Cloudflare, they're getting this monster content delivery network, security, and a web application firewall in one. It's all rolled into one, and it's massive. Unless you have your website hosted on a massive hosting provider, there's no way that you can deliver the amount of data that Cloudflare can provide to the end users. If you have static content, there's no way that you can ever match what Cloudflare can do. Obviously, there are competitors to Cloudflare that do the same, but I'm saying other types of solutions. Let's say you go with F5. Great, that's on-prem. That's in your colo. You can't deliver as much data to the internet as you can with a CDN. You don't have to spend $20,000 on a net scaler, F5, or whatever Cisco's selling now. You don't have to buy that. You pay them $50 a month or $150 a month. It's totally worth it because even in five years, you'll never get the performance value, not just the actual ROI. You have to consider how much throughput you can get with Cloudflare.

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RONALD Lim

Co-Founder & Events Producer at Think Event

Great user interface and easy to implement

I like the corporate looking user interface for the audience and very straight forward log-in process too. The user interface of other solutions such as GoToWebinar can be confusing for a less tech-savvy audience. IBM has thoroughly thought through everything and the flexibility to integrate the API to expand the registration gateway allows us to have an extra layer of security. Furthermore, the brand IBM is reputable in the market for its data and network security.

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Muhammad ZaheerNazir

Team Lead and Solutions Architect at Systems Arabia

Helps to handle edge cases and has purge features

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like Cloudflare's application gateway and DDoS protection."

"Cloudflare has many features."

"Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications."

"Generally, I am satisfied with this product."

"Cloudflare allows us to self-host services such as Rocket.Chat and Node-RED, in high-availability mode, thanks to round robin DNS which allows us to share one hostname between our two locations."

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is security."

"The UI is good."

"I get a lot of value from Cloudflare's API because it enables you to build a separate environment inside the solution. You can create a domain for performing test requests before you move to the production environment and connect various domains."

More Cloudflare pros

"I like the user interface. There aren't too many buttons that the audience will have to fiddle with."

"The most valuable feature of Windows Azure CDN is its effectiveness."

"I like that CDN offers a routing feature."

"The geolocation feature is very important because many colleagues travel worldwide and need to access information from anywhere. The product has improved security."

"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."

"The fact that it just delivers what it is supposed to do is its most valuable feature...The initial setup is very straightforward."

"The UI is very intuitive."

"It is a stable solution."

"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that one can access Windows Azure CDN from anywhere."

More Windows Azure CDN pros

Cons

"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."

"Cloudflare does not have an on-premise solution. If they had different approaches they could be better suited to accommodate more customers, such as on-premise and hybrid deployments. For example, hybrid deployments would be useful where you could move the traffic from the enterprise to the cloud."

"The product support needs to be accessible from more places, a wider area of coverage."

"The tool needs to improve caching of servers. The product needs to include PFX certificate as well."

"I believe they currently have this feature, but there will most likely be integration with APIs so we can control some features through API."

"There are some issues with the CDN services."

"The solution could use more analytics on the backend to give us more insights into everything. More reports would be helpful."

"I think the APIs are a little bit hard for us to work with. The APIs could be more open so that we could integrate better with our SolarWinds or our monitoring solution."

More Cloudflare cons

"They should improve the registration gateway. Currently, you can't do a pre-event registration that's straightforward. You have to do an API to integrate. It would be a lot easier if they had that."

"Windows Azure CDN should lower its prices."

"We have experienced issues with switch connectivity."

"Azure is continuously improving its CDN but the documentation should be up-to-date."

"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."

"The response time of the support team must be improved."

"I aim to enhance the reporting."

"The high price of Windows Azure CDN is an area of concern where improvements can be made."

"Exploring shared access solutions with cloud accounts would be a beneficial choice."

More Windows Azure CDN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."

"We are using the free tier of the solution."

"The price of the solution is expensive."

"I give the price a five out of ten."

"The price is reasonable."

"A free version of the solution is available."

"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."

"The pricing for the service is reasonable, neither excessively cheap nor prohibitively expensive. It aligns well with the value of their solution."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

Information not available

"The tool's pricing is cheap."

"The pricing is extremely high, almost 9 out of 10."

"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 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."

"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."

"It comes at a relatively affordable cost."

"The tool's pricing is cheap."

More Windows Azure CDN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

17%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

No data available

Educational Organization

34%

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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...

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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...

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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.

See all answers

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What do you like most about Windows Azure CDN?

One of the tool's best features is its ability to handle edge cases. For instance, we encountered a situation where w...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Windows Azure CDN?

The pricing of the solution depends on usage and varies based on the company's needs. If you want additional features...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Windows Azure CDN?

Windows Azure CDN should lower its prices.

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 50% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Imperva DDoS vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

No data available

Akamai vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 28% of the time

Edgio vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 21% of the time

Amazon CloudFront vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 15% of the time

Fastly vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 8% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Windows Azure CDN

Compared 4% of the time

More Windows Azure CDN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

April 2025

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Virtual Meetings

April 2025

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Buyer's Guide

CDN

April 2025

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Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

IBM Ustream

No data available

Overview

Cloudflare is a highly-regarded Content Delivery Network (CDN) and a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) protection solution. The robust global connectivity 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 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's 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.” PeerSpot user, Competence Center Manager at a tech services company

Cloudflare

With cognitive and AI infused technologies, IBM Cloud Video empowers customers to enhance live and on-demand video opportunities, and maximize viewer engagement.

IBM

Windows Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) caches static web content at strategically placed locations to provide maximum throughput for delivering content to users. The CDN offers developers a global solution for delivering high-bandwidth content by caching the content at physical nodes across the world.

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.

Airbnb, N3 Results, University of Notre Dame

NORAD, Agreeya Mobility

Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare, Microsoft, Akamai and others in CDN. Updated: April 2025.

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