AWS Shield vs Imperva Application Security Platform comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Imperva 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 Imperva is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.4. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 4.4% mindshare in DDOS, compared to Imperva’s 8.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Imperva users who would recommend it.

AWS Shield

Read 11 AWS Shield reviews

2,059 Views
2,059 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Imperva Application Securit...

Read 133 Imperva Application Security Platform reviews

10,598 Views
3,391 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

AWS Shield

Imperva Application Securit...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 21, 2025

Imperva Application Security Platform and AWS Shield both compete in the cybersecurity sector, specifically offering protection against web-based threats. Imperva appears to have the upper hand due to its extensive feature set and integration options, catering more comprehensively to security needs.

Features: Imperva offers features such as a Web Application Firewall (WAF), DDoS protection, real-time traffic analysis, and security intelligence. It provides extensive customization and integration capabilities. AWS Shield is valued for its ease of use and effective DDoS protection, making it simple to deploy in cloud environments. While useful, AWS lacks some of the advanced security features provided by Imperva.

Room for Improvement: Users recommend that Imperva enhance customer support, reporting features, and traffic analytics. There's also a call for more transparent licensing and UI improvements. AWS Shield could improve dashboard visibility and should consider offering more advanced features from the Shield Advanced in the standard version. Both platforms could benefit from better threat reporting and customization options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Imperva offers various deployment options, including cloud and on-premises solutions, though on-premises setups can be complex. AWS Shield is praised for its straightforward integration within AWS environments. While customer service is generally positive for both platforms, Imperva's support receives mixed reviews on responsiveness, whereas AWS Shield is appreciated for reliable support and resource availability.

Pricing and ROI: Imperva is seen as more expensive, but its comprehensive features justify its cost, offering strong ROI in high-risk environments. Its pricing is flexible but potentially high for added features. AWS Shield offers a straightforward, scalable pricing model, especially beneficial for organizations deeply integrated within AWS. However, costs for advanced features can accumulate rapidly.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Shield vs. Imperva Application Security Platform Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Shield vs. Imperva Application Security Platform

February 2026

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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:

Categories and Ranking

AWS Shield

Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

5th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Imperva Application Securit...

Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

4th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

133

Ranking in other categories

CDN (2nd), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (3rd), Bot Management (1st), API Security (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of AWS Shield is 4.4%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Imperva Application Security Platform is 8.2%, up from 8.2% 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 (%)
Imperva Application Security Platform	8.2%
AWS Shield	4.4%
Other	87.4%

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

Featured Reviews

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.

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reviewer1247523

Head of Sales Services Department at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees

Solution ensures website availability and proactive threat mitigation

Over the seven years, the most valuable features of Imperva DDoS that I have found are related to DDoS attacks, which are a group of attacks, and not all of them can be resolved on the endpoint level before the website. Using the web firewall before the website is a common use case to protect against malicious requests to the website. I have utilized Imperva's Intelligent Traffic Filtering feature. This feature helps me understand how the attack is progressing and what is happening inside the requests to our website. It allows me to granularly grant or deny access to certain parts of our website. This helps when we know our customers and the types of requests that can be sent from them, enabling us to block some malicious requests. Imperva DDoS has User Behavior Analytics and Threat Intelligence on its board, and this helps us to be protected proactively. Imperva DDoS connects to its database of threats, storing whole information about attacks all over the world in one simple engine. Everyone can use this feature, which can connect to this engine and get information about what is going on at the world level. That is the way to be protected at the company's level. The integration capabilities of Imperva DDoS are very easy and simple. We can run it in 2 hours.

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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

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

More AWS Shield pros

"Very intuitive and granular configuration - It does not require much time, or advanced knowledge, for configuration and maintenance."

"Incapsula takes care of the CDN infrastructure and bandwidth volume, providing several enterprise "load balancing" features."

"It is an effective threat mitigation tool."

"The bot management features are very effective, as they help filter unwanted traffic using keywords."

"The most valuable features of Imperva Web Application Firewall are the monitoring of databases and the dashboards are easy to understand."

"On the site security, I can see which countries have incidents, whether it was a robot attack, a real human user, or non-human user."

"The most valuable feature of Imperva, in addition to its strong knowledge base, is its effective protection for web applications."

"Protection is the best solution since it has profile functionality."

More Imperva Application Security Platform pros

Cons

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

"The network has been experiencing frustrating performance issues today, which is not typical for Nigeria."

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

"The product is expensive."

"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."

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

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

More AWS Shield cons

"Certificate management could be improved."

"It would be helpful to have a "recommended deployment", or even a list of basic features that should either be used or turned on by default."

"The Imperva Web Application Firewall automations are good, but there is still room for improvement with them."

"I don't really use it and therefore can't speak to areas of improvement."

"The only disadvantage of Imperva is that it is a pretty costly solution."

"I am not sure if this application has a policy where you can create your custom policy and run it as our firewall. We should have some ability to also create some custom policy, then run it as a firewall."

"Their portal is very limited and needs improvement."

"I would like to see automated reporting to improve visibility."

More Imperva Application Security Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is cheap."

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

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

"The tool's pricing is good."

"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 of this solution depends on the platform."

"There is a license or subscription renewal that our customers pay."

"The price of Imperva Web Application Firewalls is expensive compared to others."

"We sell three-year licenses for Imperva Web Application Firewall to our customers. The price is a little expensive."

"The license is on a yearly basis."

"For enterprise contracts you will be in touch with a dedicated account manager who will guide you regarding licensing."

"The solution's price is high for small companies."

"It is not expensive compared to the other similar solutions in this category."

More Imperva Application Security Platform pricing and cost advice

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

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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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Comms Service Provider

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	83
Midsize Enterprise	25
Large Enterprise	61

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...

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 Advanced on multiple services such as CloudFront, network load balancer, or Route 53...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

Which Web Application Firewall (WAF) would you recommend? R&S or Imperva?

Imperva is a strong choice, given their security focus and ongoing R&D into the product in areas such as bot management.

See all answers

What do you like most about Imperva Incapsula?

We use Imperva DDoS to stop DDoS attacks and reduce the amount of unwanted queries against web services or web scraping.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Imperva DDoS?

The pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Imperva DDoS are reasonable for the amount of technical capabilities provided. I would rate the pricing of Imperva DDoS as five, where one is very cheap a...

See all answers

Comparisons

Cloudflare vs AWS Shield

Compared 23% of the time

Azure DDoS Protection vs AWS Shield

Compared 17% of the time

Cloudflare One vs AWS Shield

Compared 15% of the time

Radware DDoS vs AWS Shield

Compared 10% of the time

Akamai App and API Protector vs AWS Shield

Compared 5% of the time

More AWS Shield Competitors

Cloudflare vs Imperva Application Security Platform

Compared 12% of the time

Akamai vs Imperva Application Security Platform

Compared 6% of the time

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Imperva Application Security Platform

Compared 5% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Imperva Application Security Platform

Compared 4% of the time

AWS WAF vs Imperva Application Security Platform

Compared 3% of the time

More Imperva Application Security Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AWS Shield

February 2026

Download AWS Shield product report

Buyer's Guide

Imperva Application Security Platform

January 2026

Imperva Application Security Platform report

Download Imperva Application Security Platform product report

Also Known As

No data available

Imperva Bot Management, Imperva Web Application Firewall, Imperva API Security

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.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Imperva Application Security Platform delivers comprehensive and continuous web threat protection. Renowned for its ease of use, it shields web applications and databases from various cyber threats while integrating seamlessly with cloud and on-premises environments.

Imperva Application Security Platform protects web environments by offering advanced security measures against threats like DDoS attacks, SQL injections, and cross-site scripting. As a robust web application firewall, it provides extensive monitoring and bot management capabilities. The platform integrates content delivery networks for enhanced performance and scalability, while real-time traffic analysis ensures consistent protection. Despite its strengths, improvements can be made in policy management and customization options. Users seek better integration with third-party tools and more competitive pricing models. The inclusion of AI for enhanced analytics is also anticipated.

What are the key features of Imperva Application Security Platform?

Correlated Attack Validation: Enhances threat assessment by linking related security events.
Threat Radar: Offers visibility into potential and ongoing threats.
Virtual Patching: Provides protection against vulnerabilities without immediate code changes.
IncapRules: Allows creation of custom security policies.
DDoS Protection: Defends against large-scale distributed denial-of-service attacks.
CDN Integration: Improves content delivery speed and reliability.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

User-Friendly Administration: Simplifies setup and ongoing management tasks.
Seamless Integration: Ensures smooth operation with existing infrastructure.
Comprehensive Threat Protection: Shields digital assets from a wide range of threats.
Hands-On Support: Provides timely and effective customer service assistance.

Imperva Application Security Platform is implemented in industries needing strong database and application protection. Companies use it to enforce geolocation restrictions and manage bots, benefiting sectors like finance and e-commerce where data security and threat monitoring are critical. Its ability to protect and ensure data accessibility makes it integral to business operations prioritizing cyber resilience.

Imperva

Sample Customers

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

Hitachi, BNZ, Bitstamp, Moz, InnoGames, BTCChina, Wix, LivePerson, Zillow and more.

Buyer's Guide

AWS Shield vs. Imperva Application Security Platform

February 2026

Free Report: AWS Shield vs. Imperva Application Security Platform

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