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AWS Shield vs Azure DDoS Protection 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
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), WAN Optimization (4th), Managed DNS (1st), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (5th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (17th)
AWS Shield
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Azure DDoS Protection
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Microsoft Security Suite (27th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 14.9%, down from 18.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Shield is 3.5%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure DDoS Protection is 2.8%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cloudflare14.9%
AWS Shield3.5%
Azure DDoS Protection2.8%
Other78.8%
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
 

Featured Reviews

M.A. Faisal - PeerSpot reviewer
General Manager at bKash Limited
Advanced protection has secured critical web workloads and provides clear traffic visibility
From a security perspective, there remains a security loophole, as some browsers in the market can bypass the Turnstile solution, which requires approximately 40 seconds to do so. From a performance perspective, this is acceptable. We also tried Google reCAPTCHA, and that can also be bypassed. From a security perspective, I would say neither solution is completely secured. Regarding uptime, we have faced a couple of incidents due to Cloudflare in recent years, so I cannot say we receive 100% uptime for our region. We sometimes face challenges, including downtime and other issues. As a result, we are not receiving 100% uptime from Cloudflare's solution. Since most of our customers are in this region, we need alternatives. We need something more competitive than Cloudflare. Unfortunately, in Bangladesh, Cloudflare has three points of presence already, and we cannot find any other solution provider in Bangladesh as an alternative, which presents another challenge. Competitor solutions have more attack signatures, which ensure better security compared to Cloudflare's predefined configurations. Customers do not have options to modify any configuration parameters in Cloudflare, whereas other competitor solutions, such as F5 Distributed Cloud, allow customers to tune configurations according to their requirements. Cloudflare could improve in this area. Additionally, regarding visibility, Cloudflare has static visibility, but they could adopt dynamic graph features for their customers.
reviewer2767527 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Dinesh Jaisankar - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Architect at Vision Bank
Security architecture shields infrastructure but dashboard needs enhancement
The Azure DDoS Protection plan is essential for environments like ours that are highly exposed to potential attacks, especially since DDoS attacks have become common. The security architecture with Azure DDoS Protection is critical for safeguarding our financial organization's infrastructure. Although implementing it is pricier, it is worth using since our applications are entirely in Azure.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cloudflare is a security SaaS provider that provides security and protects us from any application layer attack."
"The overall experience with Cloudflare is positive, with a rating of eight out of ten."
"The setup and configuration is also easy to perform and their support is excellent."
"DDoS protection is this product’s most valuable feature."
"The DDoS protection is the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"The API gives us the ability to remote control our DNS settings."
"CloudFlare's caching brings the load speed down from 4.32 seconds to 2.45 seconds."
"Their free account offers an awful lot of functionality and savings alone, before you get on to the minimal $20 a month for a Pro account which comes with its own great list of features."
"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 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."
"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."
"It is quite scalable, and we have not faced any issues with its scalability."
"I recommend AWS Shield because it has proven helpful in tracking DDoS attacks within both my past and present environments, and without AWS Shield, a business could face potential losses, as this tool helps in identifying and mitigating fake traffic that disrupts applications, ultimately supporting business continuity."
"The most valuable feature of Azure DDoS Protection is that it performs well."
"As a customer, I feel like I am a part of their team because they keep us updated, get us involved in quality assurance, etc."
"AI capabilities are very good. I would rate them an eight out of ten."
"Azure is easy to set up and widely used by our clients."
"This solution is the best option for us because we use a lot of Microsoft products. So, it is easy for us to deploy or integrate any features or products."
"The integration of various tools with Azure Firewall, like DDoS Protection, Web Application Firewall, and Azure Front Door, is quite effective."
"DDoS Protection is simple to deploy and integrates seamlessly with the Azure environment. Ease of deployment is a crucial feature for us."
"The Azure DDoS Protection plan is essential for environments like ours that are highly exposed to potential attacks, especially since DDoS attacks have become common."
 

Cons

"Yes, there were a few times when some of their CDN nodes would fail, creating serious speed issues with the site without any warning or notification from their side."
"Sometimes their more advanced caching tools can cause higher first-byte times and problems with JavaScript."
"The one feature that is paid is the custom nameservers instead of using the default ones, I want to use a custom one."
"We had to do a lot of digging and back-and-forth with technical support for specific use cases, and it might be helpful to have more screencasts or screenshots for common situations."
"Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to buy Cloudflare in my country."
"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."
"An integrated SSO feature would be useful for Cloudflare DNS."
"There might be helpful if there was some web application firewall feature."
"The product should give users more flexibility to customize their security policies according to their requirements."
"The product is expensive."
"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."
"We end up having to pay extra for features that AWS adds that we don't need."
"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 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."
"The visibility could be better. We would like to have better metrics, so we could see all the information in a central place."
"Sometimes, it is hard for our staff to keep track of changes (in the GUI) between different projects, because there are constant changes."
"The dashboard lacks insights and user-friendliness, as most data is logged into metrics like Log Analytics workspaces."
"It's not very easy to configure, in my view."
"Azure DDoS Protection could improve on the reporting."
"The implementation of Azure DDoS Protection results in a decrease in our bandwidth capacity and should be optimized to reduce resource consumption."
"Sometimes, it is hard for our staff to keep track of changes (in the GUI) between different projects, because there are constant changes. As a result, it is hard to manage, recall, and see all the features because they have been moved from one place to another."
"I suggest adding more services and additional services, which would be beneficial."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."
"Cloudflare's pricing is not much higher and is good for middle-level organizations."
"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."
"It's a premium model. You can start at zero and work your way up to the enterprise model, which has a very high pricing level."
"A free version of the solution is available."
"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
"The cost depends on traffic each month, so on average, it costs us between US$200 and US$300 per month."
"The tool's pricing is good."
"The tool is cheap."
"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."
"It is an expensive solution."
"You can test it for a certain period of time free of charge. You can have a free account. You can test it to compare its pros and cons with other products that you are testing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise26
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise3
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare?
The tool's pricing is moderate. I rate the product’s pricing a five out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expens...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure DDoS Protection?
The pricing is somewhat costly, usually around $3,000 to $4,000 per month. Managing this expense is tough, especially...
What needs improvement with Azure DDoS Protection?
The dashboard lacks insights and user-friendliness, as most data is logged into metrics like Log Analytics workspaces...
What is your primary use case for Azure DDoS Protection?
We are a bank with Internet banking and corporate banking portals, which exposes multiple applications externally. Th...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
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.
netflix, dow jones, mapbox, pearson, rovio, youview, moviestar planet, asurion, payplug, hour of code
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Shield vs. Azure DDoS Protection and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
887,041 professionals have used our research since 2012.