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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cloudflare

    Score8.9 out of 10
    N/ACloudflare’s connectivity cloud is a unified platform of cloud-native services designed to help enterprises regain control over their IT environments. Powered by an intelligent, programmable global cloud network, it is built to offer security, performance, visibility, and reliability.

    $20

    per month

    Windows Server

    Score8.6 out of 10
    N/AN/AN/A
    Pricing
    CloudflareWindows Server
    Editions & Modules
    Pro
    $20
    per month
    Business
    $200
    per month
    Free
    Free
    Enterprise
    Contact sales team
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    CloudflareWindows Server
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    CloudflareWindows Server
    Considered Both Products
    Cloudflare
    No answer on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    98%
    Would buy again
    171 Answers
    98%
    Would buy again
    44 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    165 Answers
    95%
    Delivers good value for the price
    42 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    171 Answers
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    44 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    96%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    144 Answers
    93%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    38 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    154 Answers
    93%
    Implementation went as expected
    42 Answers
    Features
    CloudflareWindows Server
    DDoS Protection
    Comparison of DDoS Protection features of Cloudflare and Windows Server
    Feature
    Cloudflare
    8.4
    6 Ratings
    4% below category average
    Windows Server
    -
    Ratings
    Automatic Scalability9.47 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mitigation SLA8.87 Ratings00 Ratings
    Security policy management8.67 Ratings00 Ratings
    WAF capabilities8.67 Ratings00 Ratings
    Request rate limiting7.87 Ratings00 Ratings
    Traffic filtering7.67 Ratings00 Ratings
    Bot detection8.07 Ratings00 Ratings
    Global threat intelligence8.87 Ratings00 Ratings
    Real-time analytics and reporting7.87 Ratings00 Ratings
    Operating System
    Comparison of Operating System features of Cloudflare and Windows Server
    Feature
    Cloudflare
    -
    Ratings
    Windows Server
    7.8
    5 Ratings
    11% below category average
    File Management00 Ratings9.05 Ratings
    Software Application Management00 Ratings8.05 Ratings
    System Update Frequency00 Ratings6.65 Ratings
    Operating System Security00 Ratings7.65 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    CloudflareWindows Server
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    CentOS Linux
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    No answers on this topic
    IBM AIX
    Score9.4 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Score9.1 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    CloudflareWindows Server
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.1
    (192 ratings)
    9.2
    (68 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.2
    (4 ratings)
    9.0
    (7 ratings)
    Usability
    8.6
    (8 ratings)
    9.2
    (12 ratings)
    Availability
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    5.5
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    6.6
    (154 ratings)
    6.4
    (19 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    8.6
    (2 ratings)
    9.1
    (4 ratings)
    Configurability
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    4.5
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Professional Services
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    CloudflareWindows Server
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Cloudflare
    Cloudflare has features as a CDN/Gateway/Reverse Proxy that simply don't exist in other solutions. Having so many capabilities under a single platform, with solid support and high uptime, has been essential. I would recommend it for hobby projects all the way to enterprise scale. There's a lot of push around AI and workers. Some feel like Cloudflare is following the hype. But after reading a lot about the new features, a decent amount of them has real value.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Windows Server and Active Directory is very robust and stable, it has been a staple in every IT environment I have worked in during my career. Junior to Intermediate admins can learn Windows Server easily, the user interfaces make administration tasks very easy as well as the documentation available through a vast amount of resources. There are other Operating Systems available with no GUI which has a smaller attack surface, faster update installation and reboot time. Windows Server does have the ability to remove the desktop experience, however it is not something I have had experience with and I believe most administrators choose not to remove it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Cloudflare
    • The best part is the content delivery network. Cloudflare has a large network of data centres around the world that helps cache and delivers content quickly to our customers.
    • Cloudflare offers us with a fast and reliable DNS service and with the world class features such as Cloudflare workers, SSL verification, certificate management and web application firewall. When all of these are combined together, it provides very strict security for our organization.
    • One of the most important feature that we use is the analytics and threat detection. It provides us with the real time insights of all the threats originating from multiple locations and landing on our websites.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Backup of workstations & itself - reliably, consistently, with Bare-Metal Restore and deduplication
    • File management and Security on a per file/folder/user basis is simple and fully done through an easy GUI
    • DNS, DHCP server functions are easy to configure using the built-in GUI
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Cloudflare
    • In some cases, using Cloudflare can actually lead to slower website speeds if the network is congested or if the website's traffic is particularly heavy.
    • Some website owners may find that the level of customization offered by Cloudflare is limited, especially in comparison to other solutions.
    • While Cloudflare is easy to set up and manage, it may be too complex for users who are not familiar with web technologies.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Microsoft needs to minimize the update frequency by making the product more secure. It can become very exhausting trying to keep updated if you don't have a dedicated support team. It can become challenging where the business is unable to allow downtime for reboots as part of the update process.
    • Prone to security and audit vulnerabilities.
    • The operating system needs more CPU and memory resources compared to other options such as Linux.
    • Understanding the licensing model can be abit confusing.
    • Comes with a standard firewall, but not the most secured one available. Would suggest using a more secured firewall as part of your antivirus software.
    • Due to the number of vulnerabilities and the operating system being a target for hackers, anti-virus software is a must.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Cloudflare
    lower cost
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    I've carefully reviewed the servers and services currently running on Windows Server 2012, and given the opportunity would renew them as is going forward. There are two systems I currently have in place, one is a very large Linux implementation for a large ecommerce site, and one is a very large backup solution front ended by FTP servers running Linux. Neither are well suited for Windows, but the overall network infrastructure is and will be Windows Server for the foreseeable future.
    Read full review
    Usability
    Cloudflare
    Everything is extremely concise and all settings apply immediately and take effect globally. There is no reason to explicitly plan/think in terms of individual regions as one would have to traditional cloud offerings (AWS, OCI, Azure). All Cloudflare products integrate seamless as part of a single pipeline that executes from request to response.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    Anyone new to IT could easily use the familiar Desktop Experience (GUI) version because we all know how to use Windows, whether a client or server version. Once an IT user is more comfortable with the operating system, they can move on to the Core version, which is the way to go in almost all situations.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Cloudflare
    In 6+ years of relying on Cloudflare, I think we experienced one or two brief outages that were Cloudflare's fault.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    some times server hungs and user sessions were busy to connect
    Read full review
    Performance
    Cloudflare
    Their Argo for the global network is the core feature we love.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    need to improve the performance more
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Cloudflare
    While I have had good support in the past from Cloudflare's technical support team, I have had some terrible experiences with billing support. I have had multiple tickets sent to their billing support that I will never receive a reply to for over a month. When I finally do get a reply, it has been an automated email that never gives me an answer to my question.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    Microsoft's support is hugely wide-ranging from articles online to having to contact them directly for the more serious issues. In recent years when I have contacted them directly, I have found the support o be excellent as I have found myself connected to very knowledgeable people in the field in which I needed the support. The online support available is vast and I tend to find most of the time that there is always someone out there who has had the same issue as me in the past and knows something about how to resolve it! This is the advantage of using industry standard and long-established systems such as Windows Server.
    Incentivized
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    In-Person Training
    Cloudflare
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    it was my senior who trained Windows Server features and i was satisfied
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Cloudflare
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    it was recorded session and useful
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Cloudflare
    Very well executed implementation where our team was able to handle the implementation with guidance.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    Make sure that you have detailed processes in place for every server instance you plan to install/upgrade, if possible get the base OS loaded and Windows Updates applied ahead of time, and if using a VM take a snapshot prior to installing each role, as well as along the way.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Cloudflare
    Nothing like it. Organizations can utilize these Cloudflare products to enhance their online presence by improving security, performance, reliability, and developer efficiency. Cloudflare is an American company that delivers services such as DNS, a content delivery network (CDN), and various other additional services to make websites faster and more secure. Cloudflare is used by over 26 million sites, resulting in the processing of more than 1 billion IP addresses each day.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    They are different experiences, and while the other solutions offer enterprise-grade stability and, in some cases, address Windows server shortcomings (such as patching), they all do the trick, but the other solutions require a deeper technical background/configuration of items at the command line, which some people are not fully comfortable with.
    Incentivized
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    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    Cloudflare
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    need to reduce a lot
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Cloudflare
    They are built for scale and have the capacity to handle all the traffic we could ever expect to get.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    yes i completely agree multi deployment
    Read full review
    Professional Services
    Cloudflare
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    i like the professional service but need to improve
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Cloudflare
    • Immediate ROI on Registrar and DNS hosting while giving a single plane of glass to managing both with domain registrations at cost, and no cost DNS hosting
    • WAF helped us move at risk servers/applications into a protected state allowing us to perform remediations at a measured pace and get them done right instead of band aide solutions.
    • CDN proxying increase the speed of our website while simultaneously reducing server load.
    • DMARC management and report interpretation allow use to identify weak points in our email systems, remediate and move to stricter policies without significantly increasing staff time spent managing it.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    • Ability to keep all files in one place and give access to users makes file management easy to control.
    • VPN Access to off-site users is a plus.
    • Secure access to on-site SQL data from our accounting and estimating data is a plus.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots