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 9.1, while Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.4. NETSCOUT holds a 13.9% mindshare in DDOS, compared to Amazon Web Services (AWS)’s 6.9% mindshare. Additionally, 94% 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: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Shield vs. Arbor DDoS

April 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 May 2025, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 19.6%, up from 19.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Arbor DDoS is 13.9%, up from 12.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Shield is 6.9%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

Featured Reviews

Spencer Malmad

Owner at Tech Exchange

It's easy to set up because you point the DNS to it, and it's working in under 15 minutes

Cloudflare is highly scalable. Cloudflare is a system with a web portal that the end users like me see. It's a console where we can adjust the DNS, caching, and security features all in that console. Cloudflare owns thousands of servers across the world that cache the data. It's a powerful solution. When clients sign up for Cloudflare, they're getting this monster content delivery network, security, and a web application firewall in one. It's all rolled into one, and it's massive. Unless you have your website hosted on a massive hosting provider, there's no way that you can deliver the amount of data that Cloudflare can provide to the end users. If you have static content, there's no way that you can ever match what Cloudflare can do. Obviously, there are competitors to Cloudflare that do the same, but I'm saying other types of solutions. Let's say you go with F5. Great, that's on-prem. That's in your colo. You can't deliver as much data to the internet as you can with a CDN. You don't have to spend $20,000 on a net scaler, F5, or whatever Cisco's selling now. You don't have to buy that. You pay them $50 a month or $150 a month. It's totally worth it because even in five years, you'll never get the performance value, not just the actual ROI. You have to consider how much throughput you can get with Cloudflare.

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Leandro Di Maria

Gerente De Ventas at internet winds ag

Rapid attack detection and traffic visibility improve security management

The solution was intended for the big clients of Telefonica to clean their internet pipe. We deployed the service to clean the pipe. In some clients' data centers, we implemented a solution that detects and mitigates attacks using Arbor DDoS, our data center solution For me, the most valuable…

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Manikandan-R

Senior Project Manager at Synopsys Inc

Solution provides essential protection with good support and a simple setup

I have noticed a pattern developing in approximately five minutes. If it were possible to provide these patterns with historical data spanning six months, three months, or two months directly from the console, it would be extremely beneficial. It would allow for easy inquiries and facilitate the retrieval of relevant parts without having to manually check logs or examine movements. Instead, if all historical data were available, I could consult six months' worth of identified patterns efficiently through AWS without relying on external sources. This solution is particularly suitable for startups or medium-sized startups. I would rate the overall solution eight out of ten.

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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

"I like Cloudflare's application gateway and DDoS protection."

"Smaller businesses have seen great ROI due to the low investment and strong performance."

"The simplicity of the overall dashboard makes it a great product for a user like me who has less understanding of the internet than a developer or other more technical people. It gives me peace of mind. I also love the easy customization of the Page Rules."

"DDoS attacks target unprotected machines. Cloudflare detects and stops these attacks using internal systems. It identifies incoming DDoS attacks, issuing challenges or blocking them immediately."

"The solution is very good at mitigating threats."

"The solution automatically detects and responds to certain types of traffic based on geolocation."

"The solution offers the flexibility to control configuration rules."

"The most valuable feature is its usability."

More Cloudflare pros

"The artificial intelligence feature is most appreciated. This solution can lower the throughput and clear the traffic, which is something really important for us. It also provides good protection. It is user-friendly, and its integration has also been really fast. We have many critical applications, and it was easy to integrate Arbor DDoS with our website, mobile application, and web banking."

"The solution provides good protection against volumetric DDoS attacks."

"Arbor DDoS offers security features that automatically detect and prevent DDoS attacks."

"We also use it by serving our customers' cloud signaling services with on-premise APS devices."

"The AI capabilities and anomaly detection using machine learning modules like isolation forests and auto-encoders are the most effective in mitigating DDoS attacks."

"The most valuable feature is mitigation, which can blackhole the IP."

"I recommend using Arbor DDoS for those wanting to keep their services online."

"Using standard BGP, NetFlow and SNMP ensure wide compatibility. There are also peering traffic reports that can help identify upstream peering opportunities. The ATLAS aggregation service allows us to contribute to the global DDoS data and benefit from overall trends."

More Arbor DDoS pros

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

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

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

"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."

"The product is easy to use."

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

"The product has a good mechanism to analyze trends and trigger events."

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

Cons

"For large enterprises, the pricing is okay. However, the enterprise price for small projects is a bit high. A mid-tier pricing option would be beneficial."

"Technical support is not well developed. While there are good engineers, Cloudflare does not offer hands-on technical support to fix customer problems but rather a self-service model."

"Although I think it's quite good, it doesn't provide me with all the features I would expect to have if I were using Imperva."

"Cloudflare's free plan is limited to 5,000 records for their free plan. They should increase that. For example, if I create a domain called abc.com and a subdomain called a.abc.com, my record count will be two. I can make a maximum of 5,000 subdomains. However, if we use our own DNS hosted on another provider, there is no limit. Their free plan also lacks name server customization."

"DNS Management."

"Cloudflare's console should be made more user-friendly."

"There should be a specific price list for enterprise-level customers."

"The documentation could improve for Cloudflare DNS."

More Cloudflare cons

"There is some room for AI to take place."

"The solution needs to enhance its features to compete with other tools."

"Real-case scenarios that have taken too long to resolve or were escalated can be directly converted into articles."

"When it comes to some false positives, we need to tweak the system from time to time. There is room for improvement when it comes to the actual mitigation because of some false positives."

"On the application layer, they could have a better distributed traffic flow. They could improve that a bit. For network data it is very effective, but the application layer can be improved."

"Support in Argentina is not so good. Although the team is good, they are not fast, and they lack the skills to manage dynamic attackers."

"It is an expensive product, so there is room for improvement in terms of pricing."

"With Arbor DDoS, its integration issues with other technologies or other vendors' technologies is an area of concern that could be improved."

More Arbor DDoS cons

"Perhaps the time required to detect anomalies can 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."

"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 time taken to detect anomalies must be reduced."

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

"The product is expensive."

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

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

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I believe their performance has improved, but I'd like to refrain from discussing the pricing aspect related to the cloud. The pricing, in my opinion, could be simplified, and I think they should consider reevaluating the pricing for support, as it can be quite high. At times, this cost can make it challenging to choose CARFAGuard or opt for the support."

"A free version of the solution is available."

"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."

"The product's pricing is cheap."

"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."

"The pricing for the service is reasonable, neither excessively cheap nor prohibitively expensive. It aligns well with the value of their solution."

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

"The price is reasonable."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"It is an expensive product. I use this product for its different features."

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

"Because the solutions from competitors are very different, it's not easy to compare. However, the licensing from Arbor is clear and understandable and the pricing is reasonable when looking at the market, in general."

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

"I'm a technical guy. But I know it's expensive compared to its competitors. After you have the on-premise solution, for your solution to be effective you have to subscribe to an "upper level," so there's another cost. There is also a subscription to cloud services, which is another cost."

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

"Arbor is striking a good balance between pricing and what they deliver."

"The solution is a bit costly if you're a small organization, but I think it's worth the price that they are charging."

More Arbor DDoS pricing and cost advice

"The tool is cheap."

"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'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

Educational Organization

17%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

15%

Comms Service Provider

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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 do you like most about Arbor DDoS?

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

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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 tool is cheap.

See all answers

What needs improvement with AWS Shield?

Perhaps the time required to detect anomalies can be reduced. Presently, it takes some time to determine whether a si...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 50% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

Radware DDoS Protection Service vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 21% of the time

Corero vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 8% of the time

Imperva DDoS vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 7% of the time

Fortinet FortiDDoS vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 6% of the time

A10 Thunder TPS vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 6% of the time

More Arbor DDoS Competitors

Azure DDoS Protection vs AWS Shield

Compared 25% of the time

Cloudflare One vs AWS Shield

Compared 19% of the time

Akamai App and API Protector vs AWS Shield

Compared 4% of the time

Prolexic vs AWS Shield

Compared 4% of the time

Fortinet FortiDDoS vs AWS Shield

Compared 3% of the time

More AWS Shield Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

April 2025

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

Arbor DDoS

April 2025

Download Arbor DDoS product report

Buyer's Guide

AWS Shield

April 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 is a highly-regarded Content Delivery Network (CDN) and a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) protection solution. The robust global connectivity cloud platform that is Cloudflare ensures users are able to connect to the Internet quickly, securely, and reliably. Cloudflare is one of the world's largest networks in the marketplace today. Using Cloudflare, businesses, educational entities, NGOs, vloggers, bloggers, and anyone else with an internet presence can experience more secure, faster websites and applications.

Currently, there are millions of Internet locations on Cloudflare, and the Cloudflare network
continues to grow every day by the thousands. The solution is able to fulfill the requests for
millions of websites seamlessly and serves on average 45 million HTTP requests per second.

Cloudflare has safe, secure data centers in close to 300 cities worldwide to ensure every
client request is filled as quickly as possible. It is Cloudflare’s edge network that makes this
possible by keeping content and other services as close to each client as possible, so the
information requests are always only seconds away.

Many organizations that work in democracy, civil society, human rights, or the arts are able to
access Cloudflare's highest levels of protection for free via Project Galileo. Additionally, official
election websites can be secured from hacking and fraud through Cloudflare’s Project
Athenian, also at no additional cost.

Cloudflare can also help organizations of all sizes develop a robust zero-trust strategy to
ensure the highest levels of productivity and profitability. Employees, stakeholders, and end users have a greater level of satisfaction and overall improved user experience, which can, in
turn, result in higher revenues and overall ROI. Zero-trust and BYOD (bring your own device)
access ensure end users and employees always have the best resources and technology
available to them at all times.

Cloudflare benefits

Cloudflare has many benefits. Some of its most valuable benefits include:

- Faster load times

- Robust DNS security

- Intuitive cloud Web Application Firewall (WAF)

- Free universal SSL

- Image enhancement

- Automatic browser caching

- Next-generation cloud load balancer

- Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

- Rate limiting

- Minification

- Zero-trust capabilities

- Cost-effective

- Reduced carbon footprint

Reviews from real users

“Many websites require an SSL certificate because they sell stuff and want SSL. Cloudflare
comes with an SSL certificate built in. It's automatic. You sign yourself up for Cloudflare, and
an SSL certificate automatically protects your website. If you have a connection between your
website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host, you don't necessarily need a
certificate.” Spencer M., Owner at Tech Exchange

“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.” Daniel P., Network Engineer at Ufinet

“The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is the GUI. You are able to control the solution very
well through the interface. There is a lot of functionality that is embedded in the service.” PeerSpot user, Competence Center Manager at a tech services company

Cloudflare

Arbor DDoS provides effective mitigation against DDoS attacks with a user-friendly interface, integrating cloud and on-premise solutions for real-time traffic control and reporting. It supports large traffic volumes without latency, making it ideal for protecting online infrastructure.

Known for its intuitive GUI and rapid response, Arbor DDoS defends against complex DDoS threats using AI-driven anomaly detection and traffic categorization. It offers packet capture, robust reporting, and deployment flexibility, helping users maintain network stability and performance. While improvements in auto-mitigation, interface modernization, and scalability are needed, its hybrid protection approach efficiently secures networks for service providers and enterprises.

What are the key features of Arbor DDoS?

User-friendly GUI: Simplifies DDoS attack monitoring and management.
Real-time traffic visualization: Allows continuous analysis of network traffic.
BGP support: Facilitates secure routing for network infrastructure.
AI-driven anomaly detection: Identifies unusual traffic patterns promptly.
Automated threat response: Executes fast mitigation strategies.
Hybrid protection: Combines cloud and on-premise defenses.

Which benefits and ROI should users consider?

Effective DDoS mitigation: Enhances network uptime and resilience.
Large traffic processing: Handles high volumes without latency.
Flexible deployment: Adapts to different operational environments.
Comprehensive reporting: Provides insights into network security status.
Scalability: Supports growth in network demand and complexity.

Internet Service Providers and managed service providers utilize Arbor DDoS to secure network infrastructure and service availability. It's implemented in government and finance sectors for safeguarding customer websites and managing server traffic thresholds. Organizations deploy Arbor DDoS both on-premise and via cloud for extensive network protection.

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

April 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: April 2025.

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See our AWS Shield vs. Arbor DDoS report.

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