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AWS Shield vs F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and F5 are both solutions in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.4, while F5 is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.6. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 6.9% mindshare in DDOS, compared to F5’s 1.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of F5 users who would recommend it.
AWS Shield
Read 7 AWS Shield reviews
  • 2,537 Views
  • 1,465 Comparison Views
100% willing to recommend
F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall...
Read 25 F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) reviews
  • 757 Views
  • 314 Comparison Views
95% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

F5 BIG-IP AFM and AWS Shield are competing in network security, specifically in DDoS protection solutions. F5 BIG-IP AFM has a competitive edge in pricing and customer service, while AWS Shield is noted for its robust feature set and integration with AWS services.

Features: F5 BIG-IP AFM offers advanced traffic management, full-proxy security, and iRules for custom configuration. AWS Shield provides seamless integration with AWS services, automatic detection and mitigation of DDoS attacks, and real-time protection against server attacks.

Room for Improvement: F5 BIG-IP AFM could benefit from improved ease of deployment, enhanced integration capabilities, and a more intuitive user interface. AWS Shield could optimize its feature set for non-AWS environments, provide more detailed analytics, and offer more flexible pricing options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: AWS Shield is easily deployable within AWS, offering automated setup and robust integration. F5 BIG-IP AFM requires more setup time but provides reliable customer support, enhancing user experience for those prioritizing personalized assistance.

Pricing and ROI: F5 BIG-IP AFM attracts users with its competitive pricing and strong ROI for businesses with existing infrastructure. AWS Shield justifies its higher initial cost with significant long-term ROI through seamless AWS integration and reduced management overhead.

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To learn more, read our detailed AWS Shield vs. F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) Report (Updated: June 2025).
Buyer's Guide
AWS Shield vs. F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
June 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

AWS Shield
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall...
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of AWS Shield is 6.9%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) is 1.3%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
 

Featured Reviews

Manikandan-R - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Read full review
Pawel Augustyn - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides outstanding resource management and application security across multiple geographies
The most valuable features for me are stability, availability, and security, along with the ability to manage multiple features to secure my applications. The solution also monitors and blocks unconventional requests and maintains security efficiently. The scalability feature also allows me to manage and allocate resources dynamically without disrupting production traffic.
Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution's ease of use is the most valuable feature."
"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."
"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."
"I am impressed with the product's multiple features like security."
"The product is easy to use."
"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’s most valuable features are LTM and WAF."
"The decryption is great."
"It blocks various attacks and mitigates disasters from occurring."
"I find the signature base is very helpful to see traffic"
"The setup and functionality are fairly straightforward."
"We use the solution for load balancing and WAF (web application firewall)."
"This product excells in every aspect from installation and the interface to providing superior network security."
"The web application firewall has been very helpful. We purchased F5 when we were migrating our applications to the cloud."
More F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) pros
 

Cons

"The product should give users more flexibility to customize their security policies according to their requirements."
"Perhaps the time required to detect anomalies can be reduced."
"The product needs to improve its logs and reports to make it read better."
"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."
"The product is expensive."
"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."
"F5 could provide a distributed cloud version."
"The product is expensive."
"The web gateway feature could improve in F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)."
"The solution's UI could be improved."
"This would be absolutely the best network security solution if the price were not so high."
"The solution doesn't really meet our requirements for an edge firewall."
"For configuring the firewall, every single vendor on the planet has pretty much the same logic when it comes to firewalls, and F5 has a completely different approach and completely different behavior."
"NGINX, which F5 purchased, has room for improvement in its features, particularly its load balancing or application load balancing features."
More F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay $3000 per month for the solution."
"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."
"The cost depends on traffic each month, so on average, it costs us between US$200 and US$300 per month."
"F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) is an expensive solution. They are one of the best in the market, but the price could be cheaper."
"The price of F5 BIG-IP AFM is a little more expensive than other firewalls on the market."
"F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager is not an expensive solution."
"As per pricing, I would not say cheap, but little higher than cheap, but not very expensive. So you can say kind of value for money solutions."
"We need to pay a yearly licensing fee for the solution."
"The solution is slightly on the higher priced side."
"It is somewhat on the expensive side although it is worth the additional cost."
"It's very expensive, and you pay extra for the models."
More F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
18%
Government
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 degrade the performance of our solution. Additionally, it's easy to configure, whi...
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 situation is normal or abnormal. I am unsure how much this duration can be reduced...
See all answers
What do you like most about F5 Advanced Firewall Manager?
CGNAT is one of its strong areas.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Advanced Firewall Manager?
The standard license is reasonably priced, but additional features like the WAF can be more expensive. There are plenty of technical documents and a supportive community available, which helps mana...
See all answers
What needs improvement with F5 Advanced Firewall Manager?
The appliance and features could be enhanced further, especially in terms of security. Some features like the WAF ( /categories/web-application-firewall-waf ) firewall may seem expensive compared t...
See all answers
 

Comparisons

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Compared 43% of the time
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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
AWS Shield
June 2025
AWS Shield reportDownload AWS Shield product report
Buyer's Guide
F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
June 2025
F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) reportDownload F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) product report
 

Also Known As

No data available
F5 AFM, F5 Advanced Firewall Manager
 

Overview

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)

F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) is a high-performance, full-proxy network security solution designed to protect networks and data centers against incoming threats that enter the network. Built on F5’s industry-leading BIG-IP hardware and software platforms, BIG-IP AFM provides a scalable platform that delivers the flexible performance and control needed to mitigate aggressive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) and protocol attacks before they overwhelm and degrade applications and infrastructure availability.

For service providers, BIG-IP AFM IPS does even more, protecting the network edge and performing traffic inspection and protocol adherence for prevalent service provider protocols such as SS7, Diameter, HTTP/2, GTP, SCTP and SIP traffic coming into the network over UDP, TCP, and SCTP.

F5
 

Sample Customers

netflix, dow jones, mapbox, pearson, rovio, youview, moviestar planet, asurion, payplug, hour of code
City Bank, Ricacorp Properties, Miele, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office
Buyer's Guide
AWS Shield vs. F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
June 2025
Free Report: AWS Shield vs. F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
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See our AWS Shield vs. F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) report.

We monitor all Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.