AWS Shield vs Arbor DDoS comparison

NETSCOUT and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are both solutions in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category. NETSCOUT is ranked #3 with an average rating of 9.2, while Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.7. NETSCOUT holds a 10.2% mindshare in DDOS, compared to Amazon Web Services (AWS)’s 5.2% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of NETSCOUT users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Arbor DDoS and AWS Shield are products designed to mitigate DDoS attacks. Arbor DDoS seems to have an edge due to its straightforward pricing and efficient support, while AWS Shield stands out with comprehensive features through its deep integration with AWS services.

Features: Arbor DDoS offers extensive network visibility, advanced threat detection, and detailed reporting. AWS Shield integrates seamlessly with AWS services, providing automated threat monitoring and robust auto-scaling for improved management within AWS environments.

Room for Improvement: Arbor DDoS could enhance its initial setup process to be more cost-effective and simplify integration with non-Arbor products. Meanwhile, AWS Shield may benefit from more tailored customer support, improved reporting details, and enhanced visibility for users outside the AWS ecosystem.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Arbor DDoS provides a structured deployment model with responsive and bespoke customer service. AWS Shield's integration within AWS ensures rapid deployment for existing AWS users, although its customer service may appear less customized compared to Arbor DDoS.

Pricing and ROI: Arbor DDoS typically involves a higher initial setup cost but provides solid ROI through thorough protection and reduced downtime. AWS Shield offers no upfront charges for its Standard tier, presenting a cost-effective option with an ROI linked to its performance and integration within AWS services, despite variations in protection value between each tier.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Shield vs. Arbor DDoS Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Shield vs. Arbor DDoS

December 2025

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 17.8%, up from 17.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Arbor DDoS is 10.2%, down from 13.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Shield is 5.2%, down from 6.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Cloudflare	17.8%
Arbor DDoS	10.2%
AWS Shield	5.2%
Other	66.8%

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

Featured Reviews

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

Has helped manage client domains with streamlined access control and threat visibility

I don't know what areas could be improved with Cloudflare WAF; Cloudflare is constantly improving and adding features to their feature set. They're doing a good job, and as far as DNS and support for any domains that I create or my clients create, it's mandatory for me to make sure that they have Cloudflare as their DNS provider. The Cloudflare load balancing capability hasn't really helped in enhancing my website's uptime and resiliency because we don't really get that much traffic; it's mostly remote users, and web hosting is done by a web hosting service. It doesn't pay to try to host your own website.

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Sanjin Zuhric

Team Lead Network Engineer at Artco Group d.o.o Sarajevo

Reliable protection ensures robust network defense and simplifies DDoS management

I am not sure if we plan to use additional features because we have many vendors and platforms that we support. We use the main function and that is it. The prices for Arbor DDoS are expensive. The licensing is subscription-based. From our sales department, they discuss that prices are very high. A potential improvement could be establishing a contract with Cisco to sell via their channel. This could be beneficial because we work extensively with Cisco. If you are a Cisco partner, you can sell Arbor DDoS. That would be good for customers that are Cisco-based because many customers in Bosnia are Cisco-based customers. BH Telecom, our main customer, sells Arbor DDoS to other customers for protection. They buy Arbor and sell the product services to others via Internet links. They sell add-on DDoS protection via Arbor DDoS. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Arbor DDoS is not present in many customers. Some customers try to sell it, but they sell other vendors such as F5. Arbor DDoS is mainly seen in telecom operators but not much in other customers.

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PranavTelang

Lead Architect at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is easier to configure and develop documentation to see how we have configured firewalls."

"Cloudflare has many features."

"What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering, so it's a valuable tool."

"It is a fast and secure DNS."

"The DDoS protection is the most valuable aspect of the solution."

"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 attacker won't have details since my public IP is anonymous. It offers us good privacy."

"Generally, I am satisfied with this product."

More Cloudflare pros

"The solution is easy to use."

"The technical support of Arbor DDoS is good."

"The quality of the technical support provided by Arbor DDoS is premium."

"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."

"I highly recommend Arbor DDoS to others."

"Because this Arbor DDoS product is the best, I do not need to spend time supporting it."

"It is fully mitigating the attacks. We've dealt with other ones where we didn't necessarily see that. The detection is very good. It's also very simple to use. Arbor is a single pane of glass, whereas with other solutions you might have a detection pane of glass and then have to go to a separate interface to deal with the mitigation. That single pane of glass makes it much simpler."

"Companies that live from their presence on the internet will get a very high return on investment from Arbor."

More Arbor DDoS pros

"The automatic detection and mitigation of DDoS attacks in the product operates in real-time and provides satisfactory results."

"The solution's ease of use is the most valuable feature."

"The solution operates smoothly at its baseline level, and we do not encounter any issues at that level."

"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."

"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."

"It is quite scalable, and we have not faced any issues with its scalability."

"I am impressed with the product's multiple features like security."

"It is integrated with AWS. So, it gives you a good first step."

More AWS Shield pros

Cons

"It should be easier to collect the logs with companies like Sumo. However, based on my discussions with the salespeople, I understand that's how they make their money. With the enterprise product, they want people doing those kinds of enterprise features to do the logging. They want them to pay a lot of money, and that's where I have an issue with them. That should be a default. You should be able to get the log no matter what. The logging should be universal."

"The pricing could be improved."

"If they improve on the placement of their data centers, it would be better. I'm living in a remote area. I would like to connect to them without any kind of lag."

"The solution could work at being less expensive. It costs a lot to use it."

"It would be good if Cloudflare could have more servers for better traffic routing or an increase in the traffic routed. This is what I'd like to improve in Cloudflare."

"An integrated SSO feature would be useful for Cloudflare DNS."

"The documentation could improve for Cloudflare DNS."

"Cloudflare doesn't have a reverse lookup. We can only do a DNS lookup to get the IP address from the hostname. It doesn't work if you want to look up the hostname from an IPA address."

More Cloudflare cons

"The solution's shortcomings are related to its documentation, so it's an area that needs to improve."

"Arbor Pravail APS devices do not sync features or config the backup enough. This needs to be improved."

"I have observed that the SNMP traps aspect that sends information to third-party solutions needs improvement."

"An improvement to Arbor DDoS would be to make evaluation licenses and virtual machines available."

"For troubleshooting problems, it's not so intuitive. It's not straightforward. This is the core of their kernel, so they need to improve it a little bit... In F5 I have full control of everything."

"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."

"I would also like more visibility into their bad actor feeds, their fingerprint feeds. We try to be good stewards of the internet, so if there are attacks, or bad actors within our networks, if there were an easier way for us to find them, we could stop them from doing their malicious activity, and at the same time save money."

"An issue which needs to be addressed concerns information I received of attacks on the radar and Arbor, allegedly, not taking any action."

More Arbor DDoS cons

"We end up having to pay extra for features that AWS adds that we don't need."

"The network has been experiencing frustrating performance issues today, which is not typical for Nigeria."

"The product needs to improve its logs and reports to make it read better."

"The product is expensive."

"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."

"Perhaps the time required to detect anomalies can be reduced. Presently, it takes some time to determine whether a situation is normal or abnormal."

"The product should give users more flexibility to customize their security policies according to their requirements."

"AWS Shield has limited coverage as it only protects against common and high-volume network and transport layer attacks, such as SYN floods."

More AWS Shield cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We don't have any issues with the price."

"We are using the free tier of the solution."

"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."

"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."

"The product's pricing is cheap."

"The solution has many features but there are ones that you need to pay for. Sometimes you have to find out which is available for free and which you have to pay for."

"I think the pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."

"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"Arbor's products are very expensive. Their competitors are cheap when compared with Arbor."

"The price is a little high."

"The solution's pricing is based on a licensing model that is expensive when compared to other tools."

"We do not use the Arbor Cloud DDoS solution because it is too costly."

"There is room for improvement with the pricing. It is an expensive solution. The issue with the pricing is more the way it is built. Right now we're paying per router, and there's a limitation there. I would like to see bundle-pricing where there is an overall solution cost."

"As far as I know, they are the best in this sector, in DDoS protection. They know it, I know, because their service prices are too high. They provide cloud DDoS protection for ISPs, but that is also too expensive."

"The pricing of the solution is cheap."

"Our customers always complain about the price of the product."

More Arbor DDoS pricing and cost advice

"We pay $3000 per month for the solution."

"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 is cheap."

"The tool's pricing is good."

"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

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Comms Service Provider

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

12%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	25

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	25
Midsize Enterprise	14
Large Enterprise	29

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	7

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...

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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...

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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.

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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...

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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...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Arbor DDoS?

The prices for Arbor DDoS are expensive. The licensing is subscription-based. From our sales department, they discuss...

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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...

See all answers

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...

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What needs improvement with AWS Shield?

Services always benefit from improvements, including AWS Shield. With respect to the Web Application Firewall, curren...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 52% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Myra Security DDoS Protection vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

Fastly vs Cloudflare

Compared 1% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

Radware DDoS vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 21% of the time

Corero vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 7% of the time

A10 Thunder TPS vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 6% of the time

Fortinet FortiDDoS vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 6% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 6% of the time

More Arbor DDoS Competitors

Azure DDoS Protection vs AWS Shield

Compared 21% of the time

Cloudflare One vs AWS Shield

Compared 16% of the time

Prolexic vs AWS Shield

Compared 6% of the time

Radware DDoS vs AWS Shield

Compared 6% of the time

A10 Thunder TPS vs AWS Shield

Compared 3% of the time

More AWS Shield Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

December 2025

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

Arbor DDoS

December 2025

Download Arbor DDoS product report

Buyer's Guide

AWS Shield

December 2025

Download AWS Shield product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

Arbor Networks SP, Arbor Networks TMS, Arbor Cloud for ENT

No data available

Overview

Cloudflare enhances web performance and security with features like CDN caching and DDoS mitigation while providing easy DNS management and intuitive setup through its user-friendly dashboard.

Cloudflare is recognized for its comprehensive web security and performance solutions. Speed improvements are achieved through caching mechanisms and DDoS protection, combining ease of DNS management with flexible page rules. The robust analytics and threat insight tools provide valuable data, assisted by a user-friendly dashboard allowing quick setup and configuration. An API offers dynamic DNS settings ensuring low latency and high performance across the globe.

What are Cloudflare's key features?

CDN Caching: Enhances website speed through content delivery network caching.
Web Application Firewall: Protects websites from online threats.
DDoS Mitigation: Shields against distributed denial-of-service attacks.
DNS Management: Offers easy-to-use and flexible domain management.
SSL Certificates: Ensures secure connections between users and servers.
Analytics: Provides insights with robust analytics tools.

What benefits and ROI should users evaluate?

Enhanced Security: Strengthening web security with DDoS and firewall protection.
Speed Improvement: Faster content delivery with CDN caching.
Operational Simplicity: Simplifies website optimization through a user-friendly interface.
Scalable Solutions: Scales with global reach, lowering latency for improved performance.
Cost Efficiency: Offers layers of valuable functionality with pricing options.

Cloudflare finds utility across industries for DNS management and defense mechanisms. Its content delivery network assures fast content distribution and fortified security. Businesses integrate features like web application firewalls, load balancing, end-to-end SSL, and zero trust to protect websites from cyber threats while ensuring resilience and reliable performance.

Cloudflare

Arbor DDoS offers a comprehensive defense system against DDoS attacks, integrating a user-friendly GUI and advanced threat mitigation technologies for enhanced network protection.

Arbor DDoS is recognized for its ability to manage high-volume DDoS attacks efficiently, providing extensive protection through real-time traffic analysis and automated threat detection. It utilizes advanced techniques such as blackhole and BGP Flowspec for effective threat management. Arbor's cloud signaling allows users to handle and mitigate volumetric attacks while maintaining service availability. Though it provides robust security features, users note potential improvements in auto-mitigation, scalability, and AI integration. Challenges like an outdated graphical interface, hardware stability, and false positives need addressing to further enhance its usability and integration with third-party systems.

What are the key features of Arbor DDoS?

User-Friendly GUI: Provides an intuitive interface for ease of use.
Effective Mitigation: Combats high-volume DDoS attacks effectively.
Predefined Filters: Simplifies threat management with pre-configured settings.
Real-Time Traffic Analysis: Offers insights into traffic patterns and potential threats.
Automated Threat Detection: Identifies and mitigates threats without manual intervention.
Able to Handle High-Volume Attacks: Ensures extensive protection even under large-scale attacks.
Packet Capture and Integration: Facilitates comprehensive security analysis.
Cloud Signaling: Enhances attack traffic management through hybrid deployments.

What benefits should users expect from Arbor DDoS?

Enhanced Protection: Safeguards networks from diverse DDoS threats.
Improved Service Availability: Maintains business operations without disruptions.
Timely Reporting: Delivers detailed attack reports for proactive prevention.
AI Capabilities: Leverages AI for smarter threat mitigation strategies.
Comprehensive Security: Combines on-premise and cloud deployments for optimal defense.

Internet service providers and telecom companies commonly adopt Arbor DDoS to protect their networks and infrastructure from DDoS attacks. It is also implemented in financial and government sectors to ensure web application security and maintain high availability. Arbor DDoS supports a hybrid approach, utilizing both on-premise and cloud solutions to manage traffic efficiently and sustain service quality during attacks.

NETSCOUT

AWS Shield is a managed Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection service that safeguards applications running on AWS. AWS Shield provides always-on detection and automatic inline mitigations that minimize application downtime and latency, so there is no need to engage AWS Support to benefit from DDoS protection.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

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

Buyer's Guide

AWS Shield vs. Arbor DDoS

December 2025

Free Report: AWS Shield vs. Arbor DDoS

Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Shield vs. Arbor DDoS and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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