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 4.9% 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

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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: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Shield vs. F5 Silverline Managed Services

December 2025

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Helped 879,422 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 January 2026, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 16.7%, down from 18.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Shield is 4.9%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Silverline Managed Services is 1.6%, up from 1.6% 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	16.7%
AWS Shield	4.9%
F5 Silverline Managed Services	1.6%
Other	76.8%

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

Featured Reviews

Herb Angle

Owner at Hga consulting

Has helped manage client domains with streamlined access control and threat visibility

I don't know what areas could be improved with Cloudflare WAF; Cloudflare is constantly improving and adding features to their feature set. They're doing a good job, and as far as DNS and support for any domains that I create or my clients create, it's mandatory for me to make sure that they have Cloudflare as their DNS provider. 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. It doesn't pay to try to host your own website.

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PranavTelang

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.

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Ricky Makkar

Senior Network Security Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Manages network threats and supports application control with ease

The best advantage of F5 Silverline Managed Services is that it is easy to use. The admin guide they provide is easy to understand and allows for implementation within a few days. The traffic manager and the monitoring tool are valuable as well. The monitoring tab displays GET and POST requests in a readable format, making it accessible even to non-tech-savvy individuals. It offers effective reports and monitoring capabilities.

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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

"Cloudflare consolidates various capabilities into one product, streamlining processes."

"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."

"I rate its stability a ten out of ten."

"Cloudflare has many features."

"Easier http to https redirect using page rules"

"New and innovative way to protect the client's data."

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

"Smaller businesses have seen great ROI due to the low investment and strong performance."

More Cloudflare pros

"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 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."

"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."

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

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

"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."

More AWS Shield pros

"The most valuable features are the configuration and configuring the process."

"The most valuable feature of F5 Silverline Managed Services is the benchmark performance."

"The most valuable feature of F5 Silverline Managed Services is it becomes similar to a distributed architecture."

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

"F5 technical support is really good."

"It's a good front end for public infrastructure"

"Its flexibility is the most valuable because it is a managed service. The good part is that you don't need to set it up. It just needs DNS routing, which is the easiest thing. Our client had Akamai for certain websites because they were using CDN features. They had NetScaler on the internal zone, F5 AWAFs on the data centers, and no WAF at all in the cloud. One of the main activities of the project was to move all these policies into a single WAF so that we could control and use that as a choke point. That exercise itself was very easy because it was a managed service and F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall does that for you. That's the best thing about F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall. It is easy to apply policies on-premises. If you have AWAF on-premises and you want to replicate some policies on F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall, other than the policies that it applies by itself, it is easy because you have a team that supports it. F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall works perfectly fine. It pretty much does everything that an Advanced WAF on-premises should do."

"Most vendors fulfill the requirements for standard DDoS protection, but F5 Silverline Managed Services has a better understanding of defending web applications like HTTP and can mitigate more bot activity than any other vendor."

More F5 Silverline Managed Services pros

Cons

"It would be beneficial for us if Cloudflare could offer a scrubbing solution. This would involve taking a snapshot of my website and keeping it live during a DDoS attack, ensuring uninterrupted service for our users. DDoS attacks are typically short in duration, and having Cloudflare maintain the site's availability from its secure network would enhance the overall user experience. I would appreciate it if Cloudflare could consider implementing this feature. Many organizations already utilize similar capabilities in their CDN platforms, where a static snapshot of the web page is displayed during DDoS attacks. In terms of features, Cloudflare needs to enhance its resilience and stay more focused on adopting new technologies. For instance, solutions like F5 XC Box, Access Solution, and Distributed Cloud Solution have impressive features, and Cloudflare should strive to match and exceed those capabilities. There's a need for improvement in areas like AI-based DDoS attacks and Layer 7 WAF features. Cloudflare should prioritize enhancements in areas such as behavioral DDoS and protection against SQL injection attacks, considering the prevalent trend of public exposure to the internet for business reasons. Overall, Cloudflare needs to invest more in advancing its feature set."

"Cloudflare does not have an on-premise solution. If they had different approaches they could be better suited to accommodate more customers, such as on-premise and hybrid deployments. For example, hybrid deployments would be useful where you could move the traffic from the enterprise to the cloud."

"In the last two years, there has been a certain amount of downtime when using the VDM."

"We're facing challenges due to an upgrade in the machine learning model. The problem arises from some users abusing the APIs, resulting in an influx of suspicious traffic. Cloudflare's learning model mistakenly identifies this traffic as human. Consequently, it assigns it a higher trust score, akin to legitimate human traffic, causing complications in our architecture. Previously, such traffic would have been categorized as suspicious, enabling us to apply appropriate blocking rules. However, we encounter difficulties distinguishing between genuine and suspicious traffic with the new categorization. Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor."

"The tool needs to improve caching of servers. The product needs to include PFX certificate as well."

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

"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."

"Latencies are always a problem."

More Cloudflare cons

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

"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."

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

"The product is expensive."

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

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

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

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

More AWS Shield cons

"F5 Silverline Managed Services can improve by reducing the price."

"You need to have Linux knowledge in order to use the shell."

"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."

"Improvements could include the creation of highly optimized profiles, optimization deployments, and compression profiles for better performance."

"There is room for improvement in the stability of the solution."

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

"The product could be improved on the global load and the integration with the other solution like Cisco and Dell. As a representor of the operation, we prefer to have one platform which can accommodate all type of integration. We are also looking for more improvements in the security policy configuration."

"The navigation is difficult to use."

More F5 Silverline Managed Services cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I give the price a five out of ten."

"The solution has many features but there are ones that you need to pay for. Sometimes you have to find out which is available for free and which you have to pay for."

"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."

"The product's pricing is cheap."

"We are using the free version."

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

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

"We don't have any issues with the price."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"The tool's pricing is good."

"We pay $3000 per month for the solution."

"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 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 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."

"The product’s pricing is reasonable."

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

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

12%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

18%

Insurance Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	25

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	8

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...

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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...

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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.

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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...

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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...

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What needs improvement with AWS Shield?

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

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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...

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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...

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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 51% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Myra Security DDoS Protection vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

DataDome vs Cloudflare

Compared 1% of the time

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Azure DDoS Protection vs AWS Shield

Compared 20% of the time

Cloudflare One vs AWS Shield

Compared 16% of the time

Radware DDoS vs AWS Shield

Compared 6% of the time

Prolexic vs AWS Shield

Compared 6% of the time

Link11 vs AWS Shield

Compared 3% of the time

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F5 Distributed Cloud Services vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 19% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 9% of the time

NSFOCUS Web Application Firewall vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 7% of the time

Arbor DDoS vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 6% of the time

Azure DDoS Protection vs F5 Silverline Managed Services

Compared 4% of the time

More F5 Silverline Managed Services Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

December 2025

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Buyer's Guide

AWS Shield

December 2025

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Buyer's Guide

F5 Silverline Managed Services

December 2025

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

December 2025

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