AWS Shield vs F5 Silverline Managed Services 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 #5 with an average rating of 8.7, while F5 is ranked #14 with an average rating of 9.0. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 4.4% mindshare in DDOS, compared to F5’s 1.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of F5 users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

F5 Silverline Managed Services and AWS Shield compete in the cloud security solutions category. AWS Shield seems to have the upper hand due to its seamless integration and efficient feature set within the AWS ecosystem, appealing to users already leveraging AWS services.

Features: F5 Silverline offers dedicated DDoS mitigation, high customization, and detailed analytics, catering to enterprises needing tailored security. AWS Shield provides automatic DDoS protection, deep integration with AWS, and ease of deployment, reducing manual intervention.

Room for Improvement: F5 Silverline could enhance its user interface, reduce complexity in setup processes, and expand third-party integration capabilities. AWS Shield might improve by offering more detailed analytics, extending support for non-AWS environments, and providing advanced customization options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: F5 Silverline involves detailed setup and ongoing management, ideal for specific configurations. AWS Shield offers straightforward setup and routine operations, benefiting companies within the AWS cloud ecosystem.

Pricing and ROI: F5 Silverline's higher initial setup cost can be justified by a long-term ROI through its customized benefits. AWS Shield provides cost-effective security with tiered pricing, appealing to businesses leveraging AWS services, leading to potentially quicker ROI due to reduced operational costs.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Shield vs. F5 Silverline Managed Services Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Shield vs. F5 Silverline Managed Services

February 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 882,637 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

Cloudflare

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 16.6%, down from 18.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Shield is 4.4%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Silverline Managed Services is 1.6%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Cloudflare	16.6%
AWS Shield	4.4%
F5 Silverline Managed Services	1.6%
Other	77.4%

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

Featured Reviews

M.A. Faisal

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.

Read full review

reviewer2767527

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.

Read full review

Mohan Janarthanan

Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions

Cloud applications have gained stronger protection and real-time defense against web attacks

What really stands out for me in terms of advantages of F5 Silverline Managed Services is that in a single cloud platform, I can protect my web applications against attacks. I can also use my load balancer in F5 because they are providing and acting as a load balancer too, and they will support the volumetric and DDoS attacks and malicious attacks. Regarding the real-time threat intelligence feature, I do use this aspect in F5 Silverline Managed Services. It blocks malicious IPs or bad IPs for my server, protecting against my applications. For example, if someone is a bad actor trying to access via a malicious IP, I can block it because the threat intelligence has the capability to block the malicious IP. The adaptable and flexible security impacts threat response time positively. It is effective because it blocks my malicious traffic. Whenever I face issues related to that application, it automatically routes my traffic to act as a proxy and routes my traffic to their scrubbing center, especially in case of any volumetric attack.

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

"Cloudflare makes it easier for me to handle and set up DNS for multiple users and multiple clients, and basically go in and access their account, make the changes they need, and it's a one-stop shop."

"The overall experience with Cloudflare is positive, with a rating of eight out of ten."

"The most valuable features of the solution are performance and security."

"It's very user-friendly."

"Cloudflare has many features."

"Cloudflare allows us to self-host services such as Rocket.Chat and Node-RED, in high-availability mode, thanks to round robin DNS which allows us to share one hostname between our two locations."

"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is its global reach and it is always evolving."

"The solution is stable, and the DNS servers are simple to use."

More Cloudflare pros

"The solution's ease of use is the most valuable feature."

"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."

"It is integrated with AWS. So, it gives you a good first step."

"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 product has a good mechanism to analyze trends and trigger events."

"The automatic detection and mitigation of DDoS attacks in the product operates in real-time and provides satisfactory results."

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

More AWS Shield pros

"F5 Silverline Managed Services is recognized as one of the best solutions in Gartner for WAF; I believe it can effectively manage vast amounts of traffic better than other brands like Citrix or FortiGate's WAF solution."

"The initial setup is very straightforward."

"The stability of the solution is very good."

"The product’s UI is easy to understand."

"The most important feature is that they have seven firewall protection, to protect our web servers."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"F5 technical support is really good."

"What really stands out for me in terms of advantages of F5 Silverline Managed Services is that in a single cloud platform, I can protect my web applications against attacks."

More F5 Silverline Managed Services pros

Cons

"One area of improvement is in the Access Rules. Hypothetically, if we wanted to block or challenge traffic outside of the United States, the only way to currently do that (as far as I know) is to enter every single country outside of the United States. That could be a labor intensive job. A solution could be to enable users to create a rule where traffic is only allowed within a certain country."

"The Cloudflare load balancing capability hasn't really helped in enhancing my website's uptime and resiliency because we don't really get that much traffic; it's mostly remote users, and web hosting is done by a web hosting service."

"The solution could work at being less expensive. It costs a lot to use it."

"Cloudflare doesn't have a reverse lookup. We can only do a DNS lookup to get the IP address from the hostname. It doesn't work if you want to look up the hostname from an IPA address."

"The timing aspect can lead to it being considered overpriced. This is a particular concern we have with Cloudflare, as they may struggle with accurately detecting the client."

"Eventually, things go sideways and require fixes when it would have been easier to prevent the issue initially."

"For large enterprises, the pricing is okay. However, the enterprise price for small projects is a bit high. A mid-tier pricing option would be beneficial."

"There might be helpful if there was some web application firewall feature."

More Cloudflare cons

"Perhaps the time required to detect anomalies can be reduced. Presently, it takes some time to determine whether a situation is normal or abnormal."

"AWS Shield has limited coverage as it only protects against common and high-volume network and transport layer attacks, such as SYN floods."

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

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

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

"AWS Shield Standard requires improvement, particularly regarding its dashboard since it currently provides limited coverage against comprehensive DDoS attacks."

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

"There is an area for improvement regarding health checks. AWS Shield does not come with its own health check functionality."

More AWS Shield cons

"The navigation is difficult to use."

"We need to have support for cloud protection, which is not offered by this solution."

"We'd like more AI to be used. Right now, they don't use it enough."

"Regarding return on investment with F5 Silverline Managed Services, I would say only ten to fifteen percent, not more than that."

"F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall, being a new product in the market or comparatively related to a new product, currently supports less number of PoPs. They should introduce more PoPs. The current number of PoPs that they have is around 10 or 12, which is still relatively less as compared to 2,400 plus PoPs that Akamai offers. The user latency or the number of hops a user needs before reaching the actual web application is less in Akamai because it has its internal fabric to route the traffic. They need to spin up more data to increase its traffic handling capability. They can also include the bot detection capability, though it is a pretty advanced functionality. If they could include DataDome like functionality, that is, bot prediction, then F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall will be top-notch in the market."

"Automating processes could enhance F5 Silverline Managed Services."

"There is a lot of room for improvement with their tech support. I am not sure F5 Silverline Managed Services can be classified as having tech support."

"The price of F5 Silverline Managed Services could be better."

More F5 Silverline Managed Services cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."

"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."

"The price is reasonable."

"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."

"I believe their performance has improved, but I'd like to refrain from discussing the pricing aspect related to the cloud. The pricing, in my opinion, could be simplified, and I think they should consider reevaluating the pricing for support, as it can be quite high. At times, this cost can make it challenging to choose CARFAGuard or opt for the support."

"We are using the free tier of the solution."

"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."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

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

"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 tool's pricing is good."

"The price of F5 Silverline Managed Services could be better, they are not very flexible. The price of the solution is based on the requirements of the enterprise."

"F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall works based on your bandwidth. They look at the clean bandwidth and do the pricing. 20% of a total pipe would be a clean bandwidth. The list price or a non-negotiated price for F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall would be around $2,200 per application per year for everything that you need. When you get into an enterprise kind of a setup, they negotiate this to the last bit. I would easily take 20% on that, which would be the cost, but it should cover all your Advance WAF features, bot protection, tech campaign, etc. It is built as a package and gives you most of the capability. You don't get the mobile SDK, which is an additional license. Mobile SDK is required only if you're buying or if you have a mobile application, and you are going to instrument F5 or Imperva into your mobile appliance. This anyways would be an additional module. It doesn't come within the WAF, but it is a WAF feature."

"The price of F5 Silverline Managed Services could be reduced."

"The product’s pricing is reasonable."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

882,637 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

19%

Comms Service Provider

14%

Insurance Company

14%

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	26

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	7

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	9

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with AWS Shield?

Services always benefit from improvements, including AWS Shield. With respect to the Web Application Firewall, curren...

See all answers

Is Citrix ADC (formerly Netscaler) the best ADC to use and if not why?

For ADC, any ADC can do a good job. But in case if you want to add WAF functionality to the same ADC hardware you hav...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Silverline Managed Services?

The solution is quite reasonably priced, with costs being lower in comparison to competitors. On a scale where ten is...

See all answers

What needs improvement with F5 Silverline Managed Services?

Automating processes could enhance F5 Silverline Managed Services. For example, introducing preemptive support prompt...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 47% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

Hurricane Electric Free DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 1% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

Azure DDoS Protection vs AWS Shield

Compared 17% of the time

Cloudflare One vs AWS Shield

Compared 16% of the time

Radware DDoS vs AWS Shield

Compared 10% of the time

Prolexic vs AWS Shield

Compared 6% of the time

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

Compared 2% of the time

More AWS Shield Competitors

F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 14% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 8% of the time

NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 7% of the time

Akamai App and API Protector vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 6% of the time

Arbor DDoS vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 6% of the time

More F5 Silverline Managed Services Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

February 2026

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

AWS Shield

February 2026

Download AWS Shield product report

Buyer's Guide

F5 Silverline Managed Services

February 2026

Download F5 Silverline Managed Services product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

No data available

F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall, F5 Silverline DDoS Protection

Overview

Cloudflare enhances web performance and security with features like CDN caching and DDoS mitigation while providing easy DNS management and intuitive setup through its user-friendly dashboard.

Cloudflare is recognized for its comprehensive web security and performance solutions. Speed improvements are achieved through caching mechanisms and DDoS protection, combining ease of DNS management with flexible page rules. The robust analytics and threat insight tools provide valuable data, assisted by a user-friendly dashboard allowing quick setup and configuration. An API offers dynamic DNS settings ensuring low latency and high performance across the globe.

What are Cloudflare's key features?

CDN Caching: Enhances website speed through content delivery network caching.
Web Application Firewall: Protects websites from online threats.
DDoS Mitigation: Shields against distributed denial-of-service attacks.
DNS Management: Offers easy-to-use and flexible domain management.
SSL Certificates: Ensures secure connections between users and servers.
Analytics: Provides insights with robust analytics tools.

What benefits and ROI should users evaluate?

Enhanced Security: Strengthening web security with DDoS and firewall protection.
Speed Improvement: Faster content delivery with CDN caching.
Operational Simplicity: Simplifies website optimization through a user-friendly interface.
Scalable Solutions: Scales with global reach, lowering latency for improved performance.
Cost Efficiency: Offers layers of valuable functionality with pricing options.

Cloudflare finds utility across industries for DNS management and defense mechanisms. Its content delivery network assures fast content distribution and fortified security. Businesses integrate features like web application firewalls, load balancing, end-to-end SSL, and zero trust to protect websites from cyber threats while ensuring resilience and reliable performance.

Cloudflare

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's Silverline Managed Services is a SaaS solution delivering DDoS protection, managed Web Application Firewall (WAF) services, and managed Shape Security Fraud and Anti-bot solutions.

Silverline services include 24x7 access to F5's Security Operations Center (SOC). F5's expert security professionals use F5 products with state-of-the-art security tools to ensure the best protection possible. As an add-on to Silverline DDoS or WAF services, Silverline Threat Intelligence integrates dynamic lists of threatening IP addresses to give context for policy decisions.

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

City Bank, Ricacorp Properties, Miele, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office

Buyer's Guide

AWS Shield vs. F5 Silverline Managed Services

February 2026

Free Report: AWS Shield vs. F5 Silverline Managed Services

Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Shield vs. F5 Silverline Managed Services and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

882,637 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our AWS Shield vs. F5 Silverline Managed Services report.

See our list of best Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection vendors.

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.