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AWS Shield vs Arbor DDoS 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

Cloudflare
Sponsored
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (12th)
Arbor DDoS
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
AWS Shield
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 18.8%, up from 17.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Arbor DDoS is 11.4%, down from 13.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Shield is 5.3%, down from 6.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cloudflare18.8%
Arbor DDoS11.4%
AWS Shield5.3%
Other64.5%
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch - PeerSpot reviewer
Fast and secure deployments simplify operations for government and fintech clients
It is a fast and secure DNS. It is very easy to deploy, and my customers are happy with this tool. Additionally, the CDN performance in Mexico is excellent, providing fast service and tools. It offers reliability during high-traffic periods, ensuring no impact on the environment. It helps my clients avoid using on-premise boxes, simplifying operations as they only use the prices on Cloudflare.
Hamada Elewa - PeerSpot reviewer
Users have experienced comprehensive protection against DDoS threats while enjoying seamless integration
The most valuable feature of Arbor DDoS is that it is based in most of the ISPs all over the world, and Egyptian ISPs are one of them. If a customer who is getting internet connectivity from one of the ISPs has an Arbor at the end, it will be integrated with the ISP Arbor. It's some sort of closing all the cycle with Arbor DDoS, from the ISP sides and from your side as a customer. Traffic analysis with Arbor DDoS is very good; it is brilliant. They act in a different way compared to others, and the vendor support is very good. The main benefits Arbor DDoS provides to users include stopping DDoS attacks, which is the biggest nightmare for all customers.
Ifeanyi Stanly Nwokoro - PeerSpot reviewer
Has ensured ongoing protection against cyber threats and provides timely automated response while requiring improvements in cost structure and performance transparency
Business inherently involves risk, and it's important that services continue to improve. AWS Shield is not an exception. Regarding advanced Shield protection pricing, there should be cost protection for most DDoS events. The pricing model should be based on service usage rather than a flat monthly rate. The advanced technique package, while premium and not available to every user due to cost implications of $3,000 per month, offers valuable features including real-time attack visibility and 24/7 access to the DDoS response team. Integration is paramount, particularly with the Web Application Firewall's rule-based blocking paradigm that helps in balancing routes, especially route 53 and the global accelerator. AWS Shield uses pattern recognition to analyze traffic, and certain attributes are immediately intercepted. The assessment process is profound, and the service maintains consistent availability. From a software perspective, there are improvements needed regarding antivirus and network security. Additional engineering improvement requirements would benefit AWS Shield.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of the solution is external DNS. It is also very secure. They have their own main server and once you configure it, the product takes care of everything. There are no issues in resolving IPs and low latency is also present."
"It is a fast and secure DNS."
"The web application firewall brought us good security and a view of the accesses/blocks of the entire domain and subdomain that were accessed both by region (country) and IPs."
"The technical support is good."
"The features of Cloudflare were found to be more beneficial and led to the decision to utilize it over other options."
"The solution is very good at mitigating threats."
"Centralized, full-featured DNS."
"Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications."
"The stability is okay and we have not encountered problems with the solution."
"Companies that live from their presence on the internet will get a very high return on investment from Arbor."
"The stateless device format means that the box is very strong for preventing DDoS attacks."
"Our customers are very happy when we provide them with the interface... They can check how many attacks they have faced and how many attacks have been blocked."
"The solution is flexible, easy to implement and has an efficient technical support team."
"In the GUI, the packet capture is a very good option, as is the option to block an IP address."
"We also use it by serving our customers' cloud signaling services with on-premise APS devices."
"Arbor has the ability to learn and self-create the appropriate profile for each customer."
"The solution's ease of use is the most valuable feature."
"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 quite scalable, and we have not faced any issues with its scalability."
"AWS Shield offers numerous protection features that are crucial at the application layer, safeguarding users from distributed denial of service attacks, man-in-the-middle assaults, and hacker orchestrations."
"I am impressed with the product's multiple features like security."
"The product is easy to use."
"The product has a good mechanism to analyze trends and trigger events."
"The solution operates smoothly at its baseline level, and we do not encounter any issues at that level."
 

Cons

"One area of improvement is in the Access Rules. Hypothetically, if we wanted to block or challenge traffic outside of the United States, the only way to currently do that (as far as I know) is to enter every single country outside of the United States. That could be a labor intensive job. A solution could be to enable users to create a rule where traffic is only allowed within a certain country."
"It should have easier documentation for the configuration. It's very technical and people who aren't technical should also be able to do the configuration."
"Technical support is lacking."
"For the free and Pro plans, Cloudflare could use a simple bot to provide information to users. This would improve support, especially for less advanced users who utilize the free components."
"Cloudflare could be improved by introducing a mid-tier pricing option."
"I believe they currently have this feature, but there will most likely be integration with APIs so we can control some features through API."
"We have noticed multiple instances where Cloudflare falsely indicates that our servers are down, even when there is no actual load on them. This makes it challenging for us to identify the exact issue."
"It should confirm audit findings of the assigned area with auditees to ensure that the audit conclusions are based on an accurate understanding of the issues."
"Arbor DDoS could improve out-of-the-box reporting, it could be better."
"The prices for Arbor DDoS are expensive. The licensing is subscription-based."
"Arbor Pravail APS devices do not sync features or config the backup enough. This needs to be improved."
"The support got worse after NETSCOUT acquired Arbor."
"Arbor's SSL decryption is confusing and needs external cards to be installed in the devices. This is not the best solution from an architectural point of view for protecting HTTPS and every other protocol that is SSL encrypted."
"It is an expensive product, so there is room for improvement in terms of pricing."
"Sometimes it blocks legitimate traffic. If a legitimate user is trying to access the server continuously, the product suspects that this is a DoS traffic file. That is a case where it needs to improve. It needs machine-learning."
"The regional support here in African could improve, such as marketing and account managers."
"The time taken to detect anomalies must be reduced."
"Perhaps the time required to detect anomalies can be reduced."
"AWS Shield Standard requires improvement, particularly regarding its dashboard since it currently provides limited coverage against comprehensive DDoS attacks."
"The product needs to improve its logs and reports to make it read better."
"The product is expensive."
"The product should give users more flexibility to customize their security policies according to their requirements."
"There is an area for improvement regarding health checks. AWS Shield does not come with its own health check functionality."
"We end up having to pay extra for features that AWS adds that we don't need."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We don't have any issues with the price."
"The product's pricing is cheap."
"We are using the free version."
"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."
"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."
"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."
"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."
"The licensing of a complete Arbor solution, including fire-walling and unified site management, can get expensive."
"I don't know about the pricing details as our company's service provider offers us the solution as an inbuilt feature within the internet bandwidth they provide us."
"Arbor DDoS is quite expensive, but all these solutions are expensive because they deal with confidential information."
"We do not use the Arbor Cloud DDoS solution because it is too costly."
"The solution is a bit costly if you're a small organization, but I think it's worth the price that they are charging."
"You need to find a way to get a good offering from Arbor by negotiating a price. That is the challenge."
"Start with a small license. Measure your bandwidth requirements."
"The solution's pricing is based on a licensing model that is expensive when compared to other tools."
"The cost depends on traffic each month, so on average, it costs us between US$200 and US$300 per month."
"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."
"We pay $3000 per month for the solution."
"The tool is cheap."
"The tool's pricing is good."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Insurance Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise29
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise7
 

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...
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...
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.
Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
I would say if it’s an ISP that will build a scrubbing center, Netscout/Arbor is a good solution. In all other soluti...
Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
Arbor would be the best bid, apart from Arbor, Palo Alto and Fortinet have good solutions. As this is an ISP, I would...
What do you like most about Arbor DDoS?
The quality of the technical support provided by Arbor DDoS is premium.
What do you like most about AWS Shield?
We have integrated the tool with Active Directory. The most important feature is that it's transparent and doesn't de...
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 Adva...
What needs improvement with AWS Shield?
Services always benefit from improvements, including AWS Shield. With respect to the Web Application Firewall, curren...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
Arbor Networks SP, Arbor Networks TMS, Arbor Cloud for ENT
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.
Xtel Communications
netflix, dow jones, mapbox, pearson, rovio, youview, moviestar planet, asurion, payplug, hour of code
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Shield vs. Arbor DDoS and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.