Azure CDN is retiring. BlazingCDN vs Azure Front Door
This is not a comparison you chose to run. Microsoft has set a date, and the product it wants you to move to publishes a shorter price list than the one being retired.
Our rate is printed on the pricing page. You can check it before you talk to anyone.
Azure Front Door Standard is $35 a month and Premium $330, plus $0.083 per GB in North America and Europe. The rate card stops at 150 TB. Requests stop being priced at 250 million.
Or open the full pricing table and read the rate yourself.
Which one actually fits your traffic
We would rather lose the click than lose a month of your team’s time. Here is the honest split.
Pick BlazingCDN if
- You are migrating anyway, so the switching cost is already being paid
- You move video, game builds, updates or other large files
- You are past 150 TB, where Front Door stops publishing and ours keeps stepping down
- You want one rate across our regions, not five Azure zones
- You would rather not repeat this migration the next time a product is retired
Pick Azure Front Door if
- Your origins are in Azure and one bill genuinely simplifies your life
- You want WAF, Private Link and DDoS protection on the same edge
- You need the Azure portal, RBAC and policy to govern delivery like everything else
- Your traffic sits under 150 TB, where the published rate card still applies
Side by side
Pricing model
Per terabyte delivered
A monthly base fee per profile, plus per GB by zone, plus requests
Published price
Yes. $5 down to $2.50 per TB in progressive tiers, the full table printed on the pricing page
Yes, up to 150 TB. Above that, and above 250 million requests, contact sales
Regional pricing
One rate across our regions
Five zones on classic, nine on Front Door. South America costs nearly three times North America
Heavy video and large files
What the network is built and priced for
Delivered on the same rate card. Azure Media Services was retired on 30 June 2024, so there is no video product behind it
Time to a number
Same day, by email
Published up to 150 TB, then a sales conversation
The dates Microsoft has already set
These are not our warnings. They are the notices at the top of Microsoft’s own Azure CDN documentation.
“Azure CDN Standard from Microsoft (classic) will be retired on September 30, 2027.”
“Starting August 15, 2025, Azure CDN from Microsoft (classic) will no longer support new domain onboarding or profile creation.”
“Azure CDN from Edgio was retired on January 15, 2025.”
Microsoft Learn, Azure Content Delivery Network overview. Checked 29 August 2026. Read it on their site
What it means in practice
There is a date that has already passed and catches people out: managed certificates on classic stopped being issued in August 2025 and the last renewals expired on 14 April 2026. If you are still on classic without your own certificate, that has already happened to you. Microsoft’s recommended destination is Front Door Standard or Premium, and the pricing section below is what that move actually costs.
Why we are in this conversation at all
Because you are migrating either way. The switching cost you would normally weigh against a move is already spent, which makes this the cheapest moment you will ever have to compare. See the full tier table, Video CDN and Anycast CDN.
Tell us your monthly terabytes. We send back the number.
No account needed to get a price. One email, one answer.
Speed tests look similar on both networks. The invoice does not. Here is the same traffic, priced two ways.
150 TB a month here, billed across progressive tiers from $5 down. No base fee, no zones, no request charges. 150 TB is the last volume Front Door publishes a price for, so it is the fairest place to compare.
The same 150 TB on Front Door Premium in North America or Europe: a $330 base fee plus $9,170 of data transfer, before requests. That is 16 times ours, and it is the highest volume they price in public.
Run your own volume through it
50 TB a month
$4.30 a terabyte effective. On Front Door the same 50 TB is about $3,470 of transfer plus the base fee.
150 TB a month
$3.93 a terabyte effective. The last volume Front Door publishes: $9,500 with Premium, and their request pricing has already stopped at 250 million.
500 TB a month
$1,815, still printed on a public page. Front Door published nothing above 150 TB, and retiring classic published nothing above 1,000 TB.
Our pricing is progressive, like tax brackets: $5 on the first 5 TB, stepping down to $2.50 above 1,000 TB. Azure figures are calculated from Microsoft’s published Front Door rates for Zone 1 and Zone 6, checked 29 August 2026. Their other zones cost more, and above 150 TB they publish nothing.
The three questions everyone asks next
Is this even a good time to change vendor?
It is the only good time. Migrating to Front Door is a migration too, with the same testing, the same cutover and the same risk. The work is already on your plate; the only open question is the destination.
Do I have to move everything?
No. Move the heavy paths here and the rest to Front Door if you want Azure-native governance. Two destinations is not more work than one when you are rebuilding the configuration anyway.
What about WAF and Private Link?
Keep them. Front Door Premium is where they live, and we do not compete with it. Split by workload: security-sensitive routes through Front Door, large static objects through us.
Keep it. Move the heavy traffic to us.
You are moving something regardless. The only question is whether the destination is the product Microsoft picked for you or the one that fits your traffic. Keep Azure for origins and governance, and send the heavy paths somewhere priced for them.
- One pull zone, pointed at the origin you already use
- From $5 down to $2.50 per TB, published, no negotiation to see it
- Roll back by changing one CNAME if you do not like the result
Get your rate
Four fields. We reply with a written price for your volume, usually the same day.
We use this only to price your traffic and reply to you.
Splitting the traffic takes an afternoon
Create a pull zone
Point it at the same Azure Storage account or origin your endpoint already uses. Nothing changes on your side.
Move the heavy paths
Video segments, installers, patches, archives. The paths that generate the terabytes on your invoice.
Compare one invoice
One billing cycle is enough to see the difference. If it is not better, change the CNAME back.
What the move actually costs
We sell a rate. They sell a base fee, a zone and a request meter.
Where you start
$5 per TB delivered, pay as you go, with a $25 monthly minimum that covers 5 TB
Front Door Standard at $35 a month, then $0.083 per GB in North America and Europe
Mid tier
The same tier table. Your rate steps down as volume grows, with nothing to re-sign
Front Door Premium at $330 a month, which is what you need for WAF and Private Link
The tier that carries heavy traffic
$2.50 per TB on the top tier, and no platform fee at any volume
Not published above 150 TB, and requests stop being priced above 250 million
Commitment
None. Monthly, stop whenever you like
No commit on the published tiers. Enterprise Agreement discounts are negotiated separately
What gets billed
Delivered traffic. Pull cache is not billed; Video CDN permanent cache is $0.02 per GB per month after the first 500 GB, Cloud Storage $0.015 per GB per month
Base fee, plus transfer by zone, plus requests, plus WAF rules if you enable them
Azure figures are Microsoft’s published Front Door Standard and Premium prices and the retiring classic CDN rate card, checked 29 August 2026. Classic publishes to 1,000 TB; Front Door, the product Microsoft recommends you move to, publishes to 150 TB.
CDN feature by feature
Static files, downloads, images and APIs. Everything on our side is taken from our product documentation, and we have left in the rows where they are ahead.
Routing
Anycast with built in failover. 50+ signals weighed per request, routes re-evaluated in real time
Anycast across Microsoft’s global edge, the same network that fronts their own services
Cache control
TTL up to 365 days, a separate TTL per HTTP status code, minimum requests to cache from 1 to 10, inherit or ignore origin headers
Caching rules per route, with query string and compression behaviour
Per-path rules
Locations: a rule set matched to an HTTP route, so different parts of one resource get different delivery settings. Extension proxying, URL parameter truncation, HLS and DASH handling and image processing, all per path
Rules Engine on Front Door, with route and origin group configuration
Purge
By path, in bulk, or total purge in one action. Plus cache warm-up through the API before a release
Purge by path or wildcard through the portal or API
Origin Shield
Included. Automatic, or pinned to a region you choose
Origin shield is not exposed as a setting; origin groups and health probes instead
Compression
gzip, Brotli and zstd. At the edge or at origin, with a separate cache per encoding
gzip and Brotli
Delivery speed control
A download speed cap you set per account, per domain or per URL, plus rate matched delivery so one big file does not take the whole pipe. Request intensity limits per client or subnet on top of that
No delivery speed control. Rate limiting is a WAF rule on Premium, and it counts requests
Signed URLs
Validity window, signature bound to a client IP, a limit of 1 to 5 unique IPs per link, two secrets for rotation, partial path signing and URL encryption
Token authentication and URL signing through the Rules Engine
Country and IP lists
Country allowlist or blocklist, IP allowlist or blocklist with mask support, referrer allow and deny lists and cookie checks. Set per resource, with no security plan to buy
Geo-filtering built in; IP restrictions through WAF custom rules on Premium
Security stack
Their round
Access control as settings: country and IP lists, referrer rules, cookie checks, on every account with no premium tier
Azure WAF, DDoS protection and Private Link on Premium. Real, and a genuine reason to stay in Azure
Certificates
Let’s Encrypt at no extra charge, renewed automatically. Upload your own, in bulk, auto-assigned to matching domains
Azure managed certificates on Front Door, or bring your own from Key Vault. Note the classic product stopped issuing managed certificates in August 2025
Origins and import
HTTP(S), S3, Swift, Wasabi and S3 compatible buckets, FTP, SFTP, rclone and rsync. Pull or push, pre-import or lazy, with a callback on the result
Azure Storage, App Service, or any public HTTP origin, with origin groups and failover
Image processing
One file at origin, every variant from a query string on your own domain. Variants are cached like any other file and cost nothing extra
No image processing. It is an Azure Function or a third-party service you add
Logs and metrics
A Prometheus endpoint, Grafana, Alertmanager and OpenTelemetry on every account. Raw JSON logs for Graylog or ELK as a $50 a month add-on
Diagnostic logs to Log Analytics, Storage or Event Hubs, each billed separately
Running it from an agent
One MCP server, 52 typed tools: pull zones, cache and purge, metrics, domains and certificates, Cloud Storage and Video CDN. Read-only by default, with cache purge and warm-up; create and update are opt-in; deletes are a second opt-in limited to custom domains and Video CDN resources, and deleting pull zones, buckets or accounts is not implemented at all. Public on npm as @blazingcdn/mcp
Full API, CLI, ARM, Bicep and Terraform. No MCP server that configures the CDN as a typed toolset
Our column is taken from our own published feature list. The Azure column describes Front Door, the product Microsoft recommends as the migration target, from their public documentation and pricing, checked 29 August 2026.
Six places where we win
Not opinions. Each of these is a line item you can check on an invoice or in a config screen.
$590 against $9,500
The same 150 TB, on Microsoft’s published Front Door Premium rate against ours. That is 16 times, and 150 TB is the highest volume Front Door prices in public.
No base fee, no zones
Front Door charges $35 or $330 a month before a byte moves, then prices nine zones separately, then meters requests. We charge for delivered terabytes and nothing else.
Cache and storage at a published rate
Pull cache is not billed. Video CDN permanent cache is $0.02 per GB per month after the first 500 GB, and Cloud Storage is $0.015 per GB per month. Delivery is billed on what left the edge.
Metrics included, raw logs as a $50 add-on
A Prometheus endpoint, Grafana, Alertmanager and OpenTelemetry on every account, raw JSON logs for Graylog or ELK as a $50 a month add-on. Elsewhere raw logs are an Enterprise line item.
Links bound to a person
A signature can be tied to a client IP with a limit of 1 to 5 addresses, signed on part of the path, with the URL encrypted and two secrets you can rotate.
Knobs a platform hides
Chunk length, keyframe alignment, pre-cached first chunks, millisecond clipping, track selection, and any origin from S3 to rsync. Delivery is the product, so it is all exposed.
And four places where they win
If any of these four is the reason you are shopping, move to Front Door. We would rather you read this here than find it out in month two.
- Your origins are in Azure. One bill, one portal, RBAC and policy across everything is worth real money and we cannot offer it.
- Security on the same edge: Azure WAF, DDoS protection and Private Link on Premium. We do access control, not a security suite.
- It is the supported path. Microsoft built a migration tool for it, and staying inside the vendor's plan is a legitimate choice.
- Under 150 TB with modest request counts, Front Door Standard at $35 is a perfectly sensible bill.
Comparing more than one? See also CloudFront pricing, Google Cloud CDN pricing and Cloudflare pricing, or start from our CDN pricing comparison.
Questions buyers ask about leaving Azure CDN
Microsoft retires Azure CDN Standard from Microsoft (classic) on 30 September 2027 and points customers to Azure Front Door. BlazingCDN is a per-TB alternative for heavy traffic: from $5 down to $2.50 per TB, one rate across regions, no base fee and no request charges. Front Door stays the better fit for Azure-native security and governance.
What does 200 TB a month cost after leaving Azure CDN?
BlazingCDN bills 200 TB a month at $765 on its published progressive tiers (as of October 2026), with no base fee, no zones and no request charges. Azure Front Door, the product Microsoft recommends, publishes rates only up to 150 TB, so 200 TB on Front Door requires a sales conversation.
The BlazingCDN bill steps down like tax brackets. The first 5 TB cost $5 per TB, and traffic between 100 TB and 500 TB costs $3.50 per TB. For example, 100 TB costs $415 in total, and the second 100 TB adds 100 TB at $3.50 per TB. Front Door adds a monthly base fee per profile, transfer priced by zone and a request meter, and its request pricing stops at 250 million. Azure details come from the Microsoft published price list, checked August 2026. At 500 TB the BlazingCDN total is still printed on a public page: $1,815.
When does Azure CDN from Microsoft classic retire?
Azure CDN Standard from Microsoft (classic) retires on 30 September 2027, according to Microsoft’s own documentation, and BlazingCDN is one destination for that migration. Microsoft also stopped new domain onboarding and profile creation on classic from 15 August 2025.
Two other dates matter. Azure CDN from Edgio was retired on 15 January 2025. Managed certificates on classic stopped being issued in August 2025, and the last renewals expired on 14 April 2026. A classic endpoint without its own certificate has already lost managed HTTPS. Microsoft recommends Front Door Standard or Premium as the target. Because a move is unavoidable, the switching cost is already being paid, which makes this a sensible moment to compare destinations. BlazingCDN accepts the same Azure Storage account or origin as a pull source, and onboarding with an engineer takes about one hour. For example, a team can move video segments first and finish well before the 2027 deadline.
Should I choose Azure Front Door or BlazingCDN?
Choose BlazingCDN when heavy files drive your bill or traffic passes 150 TB a month, and choose Azure Front Door when your origins, security and governance live in Azure. Both answers are honest, and many teams use both.
Front Door wins on four points. One bill, one portal, RBAC and policy across Azure have real value. Front Door Premium bundles a web application firewall and Private Link on the same edge, while BlazingCDN offers access control, not a security suite. Front Door is the supported Microsoft migration path, with a migration tool. Under 150 TB with modest request counts, Front Door Standard is a sensible bill. BlazingCDN wins on video, game builds, updates and large files up to 50 GB, with one rate across regions from $5 per TB down to $2.50 per TB (as of October 2026). For example, Azure Media Services retired on 30 June 2024, so no Azure video product sits behind Front Door.
Can I split traffic between Front Door and BlazingCDN?
Yes, BlazingCDN can carry the heavy paths while Azure Front Door keeps the rest, and the split takes about an afternoon. Security-sensitive routes stay on Front Door, and large static objects move to BlazingCDN.
The process has three steps. First, create a BlazingCDN pull zone that points at the same Azure Storage account or origin your endpoint already uses. Second, move the heavy paths: video segments, installers, patches and archives, the paths that generate the terabytes on the invoice. Third, compare one billing cycle. If the result is not better, change the CNAME back and traffic returns. Onboarding with an engineer takes about one hour, and a KYC check comes before production traffic. The 14-day testing period runs on real production traffic. For example, a game publisher could route /patches/ through BlazingCDN and keep its login API behind Front Door. No commitment applies: BlazingCDN bills monthly, and you can stop whenever you like.
How does Front Door billing differ from BlazingCDN billing?
BlazingCDN bills only delivered terabytes, from $5 per TB down to $2.50 per TB (as of October 2026), while Azure Front Door bills a monthly base fee per profile, plus transfer by zone, plus requests. Azure details here come from the Microsoft published price list, checked August 2026.
Zones change the math on Azure. Classic Azure CDN used five price zones and Front Door uses nine, and South America costs nearly three times North America. BlazingCDN keeps one rate in the US, Europe and Asia, with no regional multipliers. Front Door Premium adds charges for firewall rules when enabled, and diagnostic logs are billed separately through other Azure services. On BlazingCDN, a Prometheus endpoint is included and raw logs cost $50 per month. For example, 100 TB on BlazingCDN costs $415 in total, with nothing metered per request. Image processing is included at no extra charge, while Front Door needs a separate function or service.