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A10 Thunder TPS vs AWS Shield comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

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

A10 Thunder TPS
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
21st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
AWS Shield
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of A10 Thunder TPS is 1.6%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Shield is 3.0%, down from 5.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AWS Shield3.0%
A10 Thunder TPS1.6%
Other95.4%
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1126782 - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Security Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Management console adds value and technical support delivers timely solutions
I had issues with the user interface because, when putting settings up, the system asked me for strange things like virtual local networks that I didn't create. For example, I set an NTP server, and after some clicks, a message appeared stating 'setup is incorrect'. It asked for a VLAN even though no VLANs were created. We had to find workarounds for issues like A10 blocking necessary traffic, sometimes leading to decreased security, because it was the simplest way to deal with them. This was a real issue. A more flexible policy for demo licenses would also be helpful.
Pranav Telang - PeerSpot reviewer
DGM at Airtel Digital
Has enabled multi-layered threat mitigation but still lacks deeper visibility for advanced application attacks
AWS Shield has limited coverage as it only protects against common and high-volume network and transport layer attacks, such as SYN floods. It does not provide inherent protection against more sophisticated layer 7 attacks such as HTTP floods. In such cases, integration with WAF is necessary, which results in additional costs for customers. To protect layer 7, layer 4, and layer 3, customers must implement both solutions. The service also has difficulties with static detection thresholds, which may not be sensitive enough to detect smaller application-specific attacks. While AWS Shield is a key security service, AWS should enhance their expert support with 24/7 response for complex attacks, which is currently limited.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The GUI is very use-friendly, you can configure it through CLI or GUI so they give you an option to choose, and it's a good solution in terms of the appliance itself because it's very light compared to other brands that offer DDoS solutions."
"I had a rather positive experience with A10 Networks Support Service."
"The solution's support is one of the coolest things about the product. I"
"The solution is easy to use and implement in terms of operations."
"The product's initial setup phase is very simple."
"The solution has been rock solid for us; we haven't had any issues, we've had numerous attacks, and it's worked perfectly."
"Due to the availability and power of these devices, we've been able to ramp off our upstream cloud-scrubbing provider and handle all attacks on our own."
"Thunder TPS has automated mitigation and fully managed support in case the device cannot handle the attack. They have engineers available to respond."
"I am impressed with the product's multiple features like security."
"AWS Shield is aligned with the web application firewall (WAF), and they work seamlessly together, primarily working with Elastic Load Balancer, CloudFront, and Route 53 for CDN and DNS services protection."
"It is integrated with AWS. So, it gives you a good first step."
"If most of your internet presence from your application side is in AWS, AWS Shield is a great option."
"The solution operates smoothly at its baseline level, and we do not encounter any issues at that level."
"The solution's ease of use is the most valuable feature."
"The automatic detection and mitigation of DDoS attacks in the product operates in real-time and provides satisfactory results."
"We have integrated the tool with Active Directory. The most important feature is that it's transparent and doesn't degrade the performance of our solution. Additionally, it's easy to configure, which is crucial for us. It's easy to use and set up and stops attacks on our servers. We haven't encountered any attack problems because the solution stops them in real-time. AWS Shield specifically focuses on defending against denial-of-service attacks, making it a great solution for that type of threat."
 

Cons

"The solution needs improvement in terms of fail-open."
"The solution is a little expensive."
"I would like for them to develop an advanced reporting feature."
"The problem here is when you buy another box from A10, they want to put Thunder TPS to run, and it works okay, after which we cannot block it for another solution to be used, which is a problem for me where improvements are needed."
"If there's one aspect of A10 that needs improvement it would be the training. All of their training is done online, at least in what we've been exposed to. I would like to have a classroom environment for training... It would give [people] a chance to provision it."
"The last issue we had to contact them about was just a question of a false-positive. The A10 system wasn't supposed to decide what is a false-positive. So if we send it good traffic, it's supposed to just pass that good traffic through. But we opened this last ticket because the A10 did block some of the good traffic. Their support had to tweak it a little bit, but it wasn't anything that took a long time."
"Its documentation could be better."
"I had issues with the user interface because, when putting settings up, the system asked me for strange things like virtual local networks that I didn't create."
"We end up having to pay extra for features that AWS adds that we don't need."
"The time taken to detect anomalies must be reduced."
"The management of it is a bit hard. If you don't engineer it on the front side, it is hard to go back in and change it. It could be improved in terms of architecture requirements and then ongoing support requirements as a secondary component to it. People tend to set up things like this, and they just expect it to work without the care and feeding that needs to go back into it either from an application team or a network environment team."
"AWS Shield has limited coverage as it only protects against common and high-volume network and transport layer attacks, such as SYN floods."
"There is an area for improvement regarding health checks. AWS Shield does not come with its own health check functionality."
"The product should give users more flexibility to customize their security policies according to their requirements."
"The product needs to improve its logs and reports to make it read better."
"AWS Shield Standard requires improvement, particularly regarding its dashboard since it currently provides limited coverage against comprehensive DDoS attacks."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We had a customer who was down for six hours and the loss of revenue for him was three times the price he was paying for us per year. The customer just said, "I don't care about paying you because on only one attack I saved money. It's three times better than losing money.""
"We may need to pay fifty percent more if we purchase other solutions. For the payments made to A10 Thunder TPS, we have received three-year support."
"We did a price survey, and compared to other solutions, A10 Thunder TPS wasn't cheap."
"The financials are always a challenge with this type of technology. That's not really a product-functionality thing but it's the area where we push A10 the most."
"The tool is expensive. If one is low price and ten is expensive, I rate the tool's price as a ten."
"Pricing was much higher with Arbor (APS) for the same type of solution."
"Pricing is very reasonable."
"It depends on your subscription level and the volume that you're spending with AWS. So, it is very relative to the consumption alignment in your subscription level. It is a well-constructed, scalable pricing option, but it is relative to how much you're spending on AWS. Because the more you spend, typically, the more you get off on services like this. I find it to be comparable to other solutions."
"The tool's pricing is good."
"We pay $3000 per month for the solution."
"The tool is cheap."
"The cost depends on traffic each month, so on average, it costs us between US$200 and US$300 per month."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
31%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
18%
Computer Software Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for A10 Thunder TPS?
I have not seen specific prices, like $10,000 or $20,000. A frustrating aspect is the lack of demo versions. The vendor insists on commercial licenses despite requests for demo licenses. The global...
What needs improvement with A10 Thunder TPS?
I had issues with the user interface because, when putting settings up, the system asked me for strange things like virtual local networks that I didn't create. For example, I set an NTP server, an...
What is your primary use case for A10 Thunder TPS?
Currently, I have a test setup. A10 Thunder TPS ( /products/a10-thunder-tps-reviews ) works in a chain with a Check Point firewall and a Juniper MX router. Recently, we had a presentation from a ve...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Shield?
The pricing structure for AWS Shield is fair, yet it depends on the specific protections chosen. Enabling Shield Advanced on multiple services such as CloudFront, network load balancer, or Route 53...
What needs improvement with AWS Shield?
Services always benefit from improvements, including AWS Shield. With respect to the Web Application Firewall, current rule-based setups may not be adequately defined or classified. Enhancement of ...
What is your primary use case for AWS Shield?
What do you use it for? How do you use it?
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

DDoS defense solution trusted for more than 200 service providers, online gaming, and enterprises including; Bungie, Comcast, KDDI Corporation, Leaseweb, Microsoft Azure, NTT Docomo, Softbank, Turkcell Superonline, Verizon and more.
netflix, dow jones, mapbox, pearson, rovio, youview, moviestar planet, asurion, payplug, hour of code
Find out what your peers are saying about A10 Thunder TPS vs. AWS Shield and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.