AWS Shield vs Prolexic comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Akamai 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 Akamai is ranked #21. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 6.6% mindshare in DDOS, compared to Akamai’s 3.7% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Akamai users who would recommend it.

AWS Shield

Read 7 AWS Shield reviews

2,434 Views
1,410 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Prolexic

Read 4 Prolexic reviews

1,605 Views
602 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

AWS Shield

Prolexic

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Prolexic and AWS Shield are competing products in the domain of DDoS protection services. AWS Shield seems to have the upper hand due to its seamless integration with the AWS ecosystem, making it more attractive for existing AWS customers.

Features: Prolexic's strengths lie in its tailored defense strategies, high-volume attack handling, and detailed analytics. It offers extensive reporting features for network security professionals. AWS Shield's key features include native AWS integration, automatic scaling during attacks, and real-time threat mitigation, which benefit businesses already using AWS platforms.

Room for Improvement: Prolexic could benefit from a more streamlined integration process with third-party services and greater automation capabilities. Its reporting interface, while detailed, may improve in user-friendliness. AWS Shield could enhance customization options, provide more granular control beyond the AWS ecosystem, and offer a more transparent billing model for advanced services.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Prolexic provides comprehensive deployment support with detailed guidance, suitable for enterprises needing hands-on configuration and robust customer service offering personalized assistance. AWS Shield simplifies deployment through its integration with AWS services, ensuring efficient onboarding and automated protection; however, support tends to align with standard AWS service protocols, which may be less personalized than Prolexic.

Pricing and ROI: Prolexic generally involves higher upfront costs but delivers significant ROI for enterprises requiring robust protection and customization, especially for frequent large-scale attacks. AWS Shield offers cost-effective solutions with its Standard option included with AWS services, appealing to businesses seeking basic DDoS mitigation. Its Advanced tier incurs additional costs but enhances security and integration benefits for AWS-centric operations.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Shield vs. Prolexic Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Shield vs. Prolexic

June 2025

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Helped 860,168 peers since 2012

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

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Prolexic

Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

21st

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of AWS Shield is 6.6%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Prolexic is 3.7%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

Featured Reviews

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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Shahwar Ahmed

Customer Success Associate at RapidCompute

Scaling is very easy but more options are needed for enterprise environments

Our company uses the solution to provide customized infrastructure and cloud services to our customers. We currently have five to ten customers using the solution. Our model is to continue to move toward software as a service. We already offer infrastructure and platforms as a service. The…

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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 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."

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

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

"The product is easy to use."

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

"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 solution does not have hardware or maintenance requirements and is very easy to scale."

Cons

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

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

"The time taken to detect anomalies must be reduced."

"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."

"Perhaps the time required to detect anomalies can be reduced."

"The product is expensive."

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

"The solution needs additional product options for small and medium enterprises."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing is good."

"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 cost depends on traffic each month, so on average, it costs us between US$200 and US$300 per month."

"The pricing is a pay-as-you-go model that is charged by the hour."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

27%

Educational Organization

11%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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

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 GRE tunnels. We have decreased site load times on Mobile 3G from 8 to 1,6 seconds ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Cloudflare vs AWS Shield

Compared 35% of the time

Azure DDoS Protection vs AWS Shield

Compared 23% of the time

Cloudflare One vs AWS Shield

Compared 18% of the time

Arbor DDoS vs AWS Shield

Compared 4% of the time

Akamai App and API Protector vs AWS Shield

Compared 4% of the time

More AWS Shield Competitors

Cloudflare vs Prolexic

Compared 28% of the time

Akamai App and API Protector vs Prolexic

Compared 20% of the time

Arbor DDoS vs Prolexic

Compared 16% of the time

Cloudflare One vs Prolexic

Compared 14% of the time

Radware DDoS vs Prolexic

Compared 6% of the time

More Prolexic Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AWS Shield

June 2025

Download AWS Shield product report

Buyer's Guide

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

June 2025

Download Prolexic product report

Also Known As

No data available

Akamai Prolexic Routed

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)

Akamai Prolexic is a cloud-based DDoS protection solution that defends your data center and hybrid infrastructure to ensure availability and uptime. It provides comprehensive port and protocol protection against the broadest range of DDoS attacks, including high-bandwidth sustained attacks and complex multi-vector attacks. Prolexic is available as an always-on or on-demand service, contains a Network Cloud Firewall, and offers flexible integration models based on your desired security posture across hybrid origins. Prolexic is backed by a proven platform with more than 20 Tbps of dedicated DDoS defense capacity and our 24/7/365 global SOCC for a fully managed solution.

Prolexic stops DDoS attacks closer to the source to maximize performance for users and to maintain network resiliency through cloud distribution. Instead of originating advertisements for your prefixes from your cloud/data centers, you’ll make either a border gateway protocol route advertisement change or DNS redirection (A record or CNAME record) to originate from one of many Akamai scrubbing centers globally. Your intended traffic is then routed to the user via Anycast through the closest scrubbing center. Prolexic will inspect the traffic to determine if it is good or bad, and apply proactive and/or custom mitigation controls designed to stop attacks instantly if needed. This ensures fast and accurate DDoS protection. Clean traffic is then returned to the customer origin via GRE tunnels, Layer 2 VLAN connections, and/or VIP-to-origin back-end mapping with little perceived latency. Prolexic also features a Network Cloud Firewall that allows IT teams to auto generate or manually manage access control lists.

Akamai

Sample Customers

netflix, dow jones, mapbox, pearson, rovio, youview, moviestar planet, asurion, payplug, hour of code

Fidor Bank

Buyer's Guide

AWS Shield vs. Prolexic

June 2025

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