Comparison between Azure Front Door and Azure CDN services
Azure Front Door and Azure CDN are both Azure services that offer global content delivery with intelligent routing and caching capabilities at the application layer. Both services can be used to optimize and accelerate your applications by providing a globally distributed network of points of presence (POP) close to your users. Both services also offer various features to help you secure your applications from malicious attacks and to help you monitor your application's health and performance.
Note
To switch between tiers, you will need to recreate the Azure Front Door profile. You can use the migration capability to move your existing Azure Front Door profile to the new tier. For more information about upgrading from Standard to Premium, see upgrade capability.
Important
Azure Front Door (classic) will be retired on March 31, 2027. To avoid any service disruption, it is important that you migrate your Azure Front Door (classic) profiles to Azure Front Door Standard or Premium tier by March 2027. For more information, see Azure Front Door (classic) retirement.
Important
Azure CDN Standard from Microsoft (classic) will be retired on September 30, 2027. To avoid any service disruption, it is important that you migrate your Azure CDN Standard from Microsoft (classic) profiles to Azure Front Door Standard or Premium tier by September 30, 2027. For more information, see Azure CDN Standard from Microsoft (classic) retirement.
Azure CDN from Edgio will be retired on Januray 15, 2025. You must migrate your workload to Azure Front Door before this date to avoid service disruption. For more information, see Azure CDN from Edgio retirement FAQ.
Service comparison
The following table provides a comparison between Azure Front Door and Azure CDN services.
| Features and optimizations | Front Door Standard | Front Door Premium | Front Door (classic) | CDN Standard from Microsoft (classic) | CDN Standard from Edgio | CDN Premium from Edgio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delivery and acceleration | ||||||
| Static file delivery | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Dynamic site delivery | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Domains and Certs | ||||||
| Custom domains | ✓ - DNS TXT record based domain validation | ✓ - DNS TXT record based domain validation | ✓ - CNAME based validation | ✓ - CNAME based validation | ✓ - CNAME based validation | ✓ - CNAME based validation |
| Prevalidated domain integration with Azure PaaS Service | ✓ | ✓ | ||||
| HTTPS support | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Custom domain HTTPS | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Bring your own certificate | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Supported TLS Versions | TLS1.3, TLS1.2, TLS1.0 | TLS1.3 TLS1.2, TLS1.0 | TLS1.3, TLS1.2, TLS1.0 | TLS1.3, TLS 1.2, TLS 1.0/1.1 | TLS 1.2, TLS 1.3 | TLS 1.2, TLS 1.3 |
| Caching | ||||||
| Query string caching | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Cache management (purge, rules, and compression) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Fast purge | ✓ | ✓ | ||||
| Asset preloading | ✓ | ✓ | ||||
| Cache behavior settings | ✓ - using standard rules engine | ✓ - using standard rules engine | ✓ - using standard rules engine | ✓ - using standard rules engine | ✓ | ✓ |
| Routing | ||||||
| Origin load balancing | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Path based routing | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Rules engine | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Server variable | ✓ | ✓ | ||||
| Regular expression in rules engine | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||
| URL redirect/rewrite | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| IPv4/IPv6 dual-stack | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| HTTP/2 support | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Routing preference unmetered | Not required as Data transfer from Azure origin to AFD is free and path is directly connected | Not required as Data transfer from Azure origin to AFD is free and path is directly connected | Not required as Data transfer from Azure origin to AFD is free and path is directly connected | Not required as Data transfer from Azure origin to CDN is free and path is directly connected | ✓ | ✓ |
| Origin Port | All TCP ports | All TCP ports | All TCP ports | All TCP ports | All TCP ports | All TCP ports |
| Customizable, rules based content delivery engine | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ using Standard rules engine | ✓ using Premium rules engine | |
| Mobile device rules | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ using Standard rules engine | ✓ using Premium rules engine | |
| Security | ||||||
| Custom Web Application Firewall (WAF) rules | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||
| Microsoft managed rule set | ✓ | ✓ - Only default rule set 1.1 or less | ||||
| Bot protection | ✓ | ✓ - Only bot manager rule set 1.0 | ||||
| Private link connection to origin | ✓ | |||||
| Geo-filtering | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Token authentication | ✓ | |||||
| DDOS protection | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Domain Fronting Block | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Analytics and reporting | ||||||
| Monitoring Metrics | ✓ (more metrics than Classic) | ✓ (more metrics than Classic) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Advanced analytics/built-in reports | ✓ | ✓ - includes WAF report | ✓ | |||
| Raw logs - access logs and WAF logs | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Health probe log | ✓ | ✓ | ||||
| Ease of use | ||||||
| Easy integration with Azure services, such as Storage and Web Apps | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Management via REST API, .NET, de.js, or PowerShell | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Compression MIME types | Configurable | Configurable | Configurable | Configurable | Configurable | Configurable |
| Compression encodings | gzip, brotli | gzip, brotli | gzip, brotli | gzip, brotli | gzip, deflate, bzip2 | gzip, deflate, bzip2, brotli |
| Azure Policy integration | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||
| Azure Advisory integration | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Managed Identities with Azure Key Vault | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||
| Pricing | Azure Front Door pricing | Azure CDN pricing | ||||
| Simplified pricing | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Services on retirement path
The following table lists services that are on retirement path, frequently asked questions regarding retirement, and migration guidance.
| Details | Front Door (classic) | CDN Standard from Microsoft (classic) | CDN Standard from Akamai | CDN Standard/Premium from Edgio |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retirement Date | March 31, 2027 | September 30, 2027 | December 31, 2023 | January 15, 2025 |
| Date until new resources can be created | March 31, 2025 | September 30, 2025 | Service is already retired | January 15, 2025 |
| Documentation | Azure update, FAQ | Azure update, FAQ | FAQ | FAQ |
| Migration | Considerations, Step-by-step instructions | Considerations, Step-by-step instructions | Service is already retired | Step-by-step instructions |
Next steps
- Learn how to create an Azure Front Door.
- Learn how about the Azure Front Door architecture.