Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Cloudflare vs Fortinet FortiDDoS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

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
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (13th)
Fortinet FortiDDoS
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
15
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 Cloudflare is 19.6%, up from 19.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiDDoS is 2.9%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch - PeerSpot reviewer
Fast and secure deployments simplify operations for government and fintech clients
It is a fast and secure DNS. It is very easy to deploy, and my customers are happy with this tool. Additionally, the CDN performance in Mexico is excellent, providing fast service and tools. It offers reliability during high-traffic periods, ensuring no impact on the environment. It helps my clients avoid using on-premise boxes, simplifying operations as they only use the prices on Cloudflare.
Yazan Omar - PeerSpot reviewer
An easy-to-use tool with great GUI
The product's initial setup phase was really easy. There is a lot of time involved in the testing phase and other processes related to the area of deployment, so it may take up to two weeks to deploy the solution. The solution is deployed on an on-premises model. One person is enough to take care of the deployment phase of the product. The person involved in the deployment phase needs to better understand topologies when dealing with Fortinet.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Smaller businesses have seen great ROI due to the low investment and strong performance."
"The most valuable feature is its usability."
"The features of Cloudflare were found to be more beneficial and led to the decision to utilize it over other options."
"The overall experience with Cloudflare is positive, with a rating of eight out of ten."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the web application firewall."
"The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security."
"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. You don't necessarily need a certificate if you have a connection between your website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host."
"The protection resources and the support are valuable features of the solution."
"It is a user-friendly product in terms of monitoring and updating policies."
"I find the interface easy to use."
"This solution can protect Layer 3, Layer 4 and Layer 7 attacks of applications for us."
"Packet inspection has been effective for mitigating DDoS attacks."
"Among its key features: Detects and mitigates DDoS attacks at L3 to L7; negligible to zero false-positives; Generates and sends reports without the need for an expensive third-party solution."
"The equipment works very well, and I have not encountered any issues with it."
"The most valuable feature is the cloud DDoS scrubbing capability."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"The reporting can definitely be improved to offer a lot more explanation on something that may have happened or has actually happened."
"We have noticed multiple instances where Cloudflare falsely indicates that our servers are down, even when there is no actual load on them. This makes it challenging for us to identify the exact issue."
"The product needs to improve its automation."
"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."
"The tool needs to focus more on the area of application traffic management, where it currently has some shortcomings."
"The product’s pricing needs improvement."
"Alerts and reporting features must be improved."
"All the thresholds that need to be configured should be included in the default so that user will not forget or misconfigure."
"I would like to see analytics, big data."
"There aren't really any aspects of the solution we are unhappy with. It's been a positive experience overall."
"The challenge lies within the customer environment, particularly in Brazil, where companies have stringent security requirements for implementing solutions."
"The only thing they need to do is to automate it. Today, you must create tools that do not require the use of an expert or anyone with special skills."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."
"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."
"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."
"I give the price a five out of ten."
"A free version of the solution is available."
"We don't have any issues with the price."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."
"The product’s pricing needs improvement."
"It's quite pricey."
"The solution is reasonably priced."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection solutions are best for your needs.
859,687 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user68487 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 6, 2013
CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Web Application Firewall
CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Round 2 Web Application Firewall Comparative Penetration Testing Analysis Report v1.0 Summary This document contains the results of a second comparative penetration test conducted by a team of security specialists at Zero Science Lab against two cloud-based Web…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
7%
 

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 GRE tunnels. We have decreased site load times on Mobile 3G from 8 to 1,6 seconds ...
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 that offers great redundancy and advanced security with built-in unmetered and ...
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.
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 prefer Arbor.
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiDDoS?
The product's initial setup phase was really easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiDDoS?
Fortinet FortiDDoS offers lower costs compared to other solutions. The licensing costs are annually renewed.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
Fortinet DDoS, FortiDDos
 

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.
Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare vs. Fortinet FortiDDoS and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,687 professionals have used our research since 2012.