AWS Shield vs Cloudflare comparison

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AWS Shield

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 29, 2024

Cloudflare and AWS Shield both offer robust security solutions. Cloudflare provides broader satisfaction with pricing and support, while AWS Shield is often favored for its comprehensive features, indicating users find it worth the expense.

Features: Cloudflare's users highly value its DDoS protection, customizable security settings, and ease of use. AWS Shield is often praised for its advanced threat detection, integration with other AWS services, and feature richness catering to complex requirements.

Room for Improvement: Users suggest Cloudflare could enhance its reporting capabilities, decrease latency, and update usability features. For AWS Shield, feedback points to a need for simplifying the configuration process, providing more documentation, and improving user guidance.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cloudflare generally receives positive feedback for straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. AWS Shield, while powerful, is criticized for having a steeper learning curve. Users appreciate Cloudflare's ease and support but recognize AWS Shield for thorough problem-solving assistance.

Pricing and ROI: Cloudflare is noted for its competitive pricing and significant ROI, making it attractive for various budgets. AWS Shield’s higher costs are justified by its robust capabilities, delivering high returns for businesses with complex security needs. Cloudflare is praised for affordability, whereas AWS Shield offers substantial ROI for bigger investments.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Shield vs. Cloudflare Report (Updated: October 2024).

AWS Shield vs. Cloudflare

October 2024

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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:

Valuable Features

No sentiment score available

Sentiment score

8.3

Cloudflare provides speed enhancement, security, and ease of use with CDN, DDoS protection, SSL, and traffic analytics for website optimization.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the AWS Shield report

The aggressive caching and DDOS mitigation are the most valuable features offered by Cloudflare.

it_user241758

Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

DDoS protection is what CloudFlare is known for.

it_user506838

System Administrator at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees

Web optimization features such as ‘Automatic Content Caching’, ‘Rocket Loader’, and ‘AutoMinify’, which help to minimize the website loading time and increase the website response.

Aum e Hani

Manager - Web Development at a engineering company with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

Room For Improvement

No sentiment score available

Sentiment score

5.3

Users suggest Cloudflare improve analytics, CDN errors, support, DNS, APIs, pricing, server access, DDoS features, and documentation.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the AWS Shield report

In CloudFlare's case, I need to get an external server, set up the redirection there using Apache or NGINX and put my own SSL certificates there.

it_user298149

Linux/Cisco/Microsoft Infraestructure Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

The feature shows a cached version of your live site if your host is offline.

it_user508683

Systems and New Media Manager at a leisure / travel company with 51-200 employees

Hybrid deployments would be useful where you could move the traffic from the enterprise to the cloud.

reviewer1527936

Competence Center Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

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Stability Issues

No sentiment score available

Sentiment score

8.0

Cloudflare is generally praised for stability and reliability, despite occasional issues and past outages, requiring proper configuration for best performance.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the AWS Shield report

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.

it_user253797

IT Consultant, Business Owner, Lecturer at a tech consulting company with 10,001+ employees

Once the webserver is installed with CloudFlare, it should work like a charm.

it_user276009

Co Founder at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Since we switched to the business plan, we encounter no problems.

it_user92823

Online Marketing & Development Manager at a engineering company with 501-1,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

Scalability Issues

No sentiment score available

Sentiment score

8.4

Cloudflare is highly regarded for its scalability, smoothly accommodating various user needs and handling significant traffic across business sizes.

No quotes available

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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.

Spencer Malmad

Owner at Tech Exchange

Scalability is not a problem for CloudFlare since they are a cloud based solution.

it_user276009

Co Founder at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

They're expanding and have enough resources worldwide.

reviewer1245303

Senior Consultant CDN at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

Customer Service

No sentiment score available

Sentiment score

7.9

Customer service is highly rated, especially for Enterprise plans, but response times could improve for complex issues.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the AWS Shield report

The representatives are knowledgeable and online documentation is great.

it_user241758

Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Enterprise support is amazing. It's 10 out of 10.

Spencer Malmad

Owner at Tech Exchange

This would help us address issues promptly, especially during unforeseen events like DDoS attacks.

M.A. Faisal

General Manager at .bKash Limited

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

Setup Cost

No sentiment score available

Sentiment score

6.3

Cloudflare provides free and paid plans from $20, with straightforward pricing catering to small, medium, and enterprise businesses.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the AWS Shield report

currently we are using the $20 a month plan

it_user241758

Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

The monthly cost is around $30 for three sites using the Business Cloudflare plan.

it_user253797

IT Consultant, Business Owner, Lecturer at a tech consulting company with 10,001+ employees

You can start at zero and work your way up to the enterprise model, which has a very high pricing level.

reviewer1245303

Senior Consultant CDN at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Cloudflare report

Categories and Ranking

AWS Shield

Ranking in Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection

6th

Average Rating

8.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Cloudflare

Ranking in Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

CDN (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (11th)

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection category, the mindshare of AWS Shield is 5.8%, up from 5.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cloudflare is 19.8%, down from 20.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Protection

Featured Reviews

SteveNg

Head of Strategic Alliances at Quantum Security

The solution automatically scales according to traffic, only takes minutes to deploy, and is maintenance-free

Ultimately, the cost of the solution goes up as we add features, but I believe over time AWS has been adding more frequently asked features. Depending on the website, if our website has more transactions, more sensitive information, and more value, then, of course, we need more features. For us, we only require basic information, a website, some custom consumer, end user, and front-facing purposes. We end up having to pay extra for features that AWS adds that we don't need. The pricing of the solution can be improved.

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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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Comparison Review

it_user68487

Security Expert with 51-200 employees

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…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

17%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

25%

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

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...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Shield?

The tool is cheap.

What needs improvement with AWS Shield?

The time taken to detect anomalies must be reduced. The tool has a few parameters based on which it tries to understand anomalies. It would be better if the anomalies were identified quickly.

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.

Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform vs AWS Shield

Comparisons

Compared 26% of the time

Azure DDoS Protection vs AWS Shield

Compared 24% of the time

Akamai App and API Protector vs AWS Shield

Compared 6% of the time

Arbor DDoS vs AWS Shield

Compared 3% of the time

Fortinet FortiDDoS vs AWS Shield

Compared 3% of the time

More AWS Shield Competitors

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 49% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Hurricane Electric Free DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 1% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

Product Reports

Download AWS Shield product report

AWS Shield

November 2024

Download Cloudflare product report

November 2024

Also Known As

No data available

Cloudflare DNS

Learn More

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

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.

Cloudflare offers DDoS protection, security, DNS management, and CDN services to enhance website performance and security. Users benefit from improved load balancing and comprehensive security features, making it a reliable choice for managing web traffic and protecting against cyber threats.

Cloudflare is widely recognized for its comprehensive features that cater to web security and performance. Users frequently take advantage of its DDoS protection, flexible SSL options, and content optimization tools. The platform's strength in DNS management and caching ensures reduced server load and faster response times. While its user-friendly interface and resource optimization significantly enhance website performance and security, there is potential for improvement in analytics, CDN speed, and technical support.

What are Cloudflare's key features?

CDN: Efficiently delivers content globally, reducing latency and enhancing speed.
DDoS Protection: Shields websites from attacks, ensuring uninterrupted service.
DNS Management: Simplifies the process with reliable functionality.
Caching: Minimizes server load, accelerating content delivery.
WAF: Protects against a range of threats, bolstering site security.
Zero Trust: Offers advanced security measures to protect data and access.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Performance Improvement: Significant webpage speed enhancement through optimization.
Security Features: Robust mechanisms that guard against cyber threats.
User-Friendly Interface: Facilitates ease of use and management.
Global Resource Optimization: Efficient distribution of content and resources.

Industries ranging from e-commerce to the financial sector implement Cloudflare to safeguard online assets and streamline traffic management. These industries leverage its CDN and security capabilities to provide fast, secure user experiences, crucial for their demanding environments. Educational institutions utilize its robust DNS management to efficiently handle high volumes of traffic while maintaining security and performance across their networks.

Sample Customers

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

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.