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AWS Shield vs F5 Silverline Managed Services comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

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
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
F5 Silverline Managed Services
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of AWS Shield is 3.0%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Silverline Managed Services is 2.9%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
F5 Silverline Managed Services2.9%
AWS Shield3.0%
Other94.1%
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
 

Featured Reviews

Pranav Telang - PeerSpot reviewer
DGM at Airtel Digital
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.
Sanchit Makkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Dns architect at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Robust protection has secured global web assets and keeps critical applications available
F5 Silverline Managed Services can be improved in areas with complex onboarding processes and slow deployment settings. Tuning of policy requires significant technical expertise, and there is a lack of knowledge in the F5 world where one needs to go through a steep learning curve in understanding what and how the policy should be configured for effectively protecting an application. These processes need to be streamlined.Knowing the limitations of F5 Silverline Managed Services, F5 has come out with a new product called F5 distributed cloud WAF platform, which has a better API integrated with security modules. It also offers advanced auto discovery, swagger, and open API validation, which is much better than Silverline.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product has a good mechanism to analyze trends and trigger events."
"It is quite scalable, and we have not faced any issues with its scalability."
"AWS Shield is aligned with the web application firewall (WAF), and they work seamlessly together, primarily working with Elastic Load Balancer, CloudFront, and Route 53 for CDN and DNS services protection."
"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 operates smoothly at its baseline level, and we do not encounter any issues at that level."
"The product is easy to use."
"It is integrated with AWS. So, it gives you a good first step."
"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."
"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."
"Overall, this is a good security solution, but there is no such thing as a perfect appliance in IT."
"The stability of the solution is very good."
"The most valuable feature of F5 Silverline Managed Services is the benchmark performance."
"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."
"F5 Silverline offers load balancing, flexibility, and reliability."
"The most important feature is that they have seven firewall protection, to protect our web servers."
 

Cons

"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."
"The product needs to improve its logs and reports to make it read better."
"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."
"We end up having to pay extra for features that AWS adds that we don't need."
"There is an area for improvement regarding health checks. AWS Shield does not come with its own health check functionality."
"The product should give users more flexibility to customize their security policies according to their requirements."
"The time taken to detect anomalies must be reduced."
"The product is expensive."
"In terms of the scalability, this part is always so confusing because they are checking for packet count. Also, after an attack, they said that the throughput must be from gigabits but then I check my bandwidth and it is already done in gigabits. So it is a little bit confusing."
"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."
"F5 Silverline Managed Services can improve by reducing the price."
"F5 Silverline Managed Services can be improved in areas with complex onboarding processes and slow deployment settings."
"I just hope the price can be cheaper."
"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 disadvantages of F5 Silverline Managed Services in comparison to Radware include complexities in WAF technology and iRules, which are highly useful."
"We have complaints about the reliability of this solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing is good."
"The tool is cheap."
"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 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 price of F5 Silverline Managed Services could be reduced."
"The product’s pricing is reasonable."
"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
Comms Service Provider
18%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise13
 

Questions from the Community

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 Advanced on multiple services such as CloudFront, network load balancer, or Route 53...
What needs improvement with AWS Shield?
Services always benefit from improvements, including AWS Shield. With respect to the Web Application Firewall, current rule-based setups may not be adequately defined or classified. Enhancement of ...
What is your primary use case for AWS Shield?
What do you use it for? How do you use it?
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 have to look for other ADC's like F5, Imperva, Radware, Fortinet, etc.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Silverline Managed Services?
My company has a business relationship with F5 Silverline Managed Services, as they charge based on services provided. The operational team handles project configuration. We mostly purchase F5 Silv...
What needs improvement with F5 Silverline Managed Services?
The disadvantages of F5 Silverline Managed Services in comparison to Radware include complexities in WAF technology and iRules, which are highly useful. Radware provides straightforward blocking WA...
 

Also Known As

No data available
F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall, F5 Silverline DDoS Protection
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

netflix, dow jones, mapbox, pearson, rovio, youview, moviestar planet, asurion, payplug, hour of code
City Bank, Ricacorp Properties, Miele, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Shield vs. F5 Silverline Managed Services and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,383 professionals have used our research since 2012.