AWS Shield vs Imperva Application Security Platform comparison

AWS Shield vs. Imperva Application Security Platform

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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

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

"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 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."

"The product is easy to use."

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

"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."

More AWS Shield pros

"The most valuable features for us are the DDoS and Bot."

"The valuable features of Imperva WAF include its effective security breach prevention through automatically updating rules."

"This product is a reliable defense from malicious attacks on a network environment."

"There is no need to have an appliance in house for the services because it is on the cloud."

"Technical support was very helpful."

"The configurability of the tools and the ease of operation to be the most valuable feature of Imperva."

"Integration with IBM AS/400 and Db2 is okay."

"Compared to other web application firewalls in the market, Imperva does things in the most accurate way."

More Imperva Application Security Platform pros

Cons

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

"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."

"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. 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 is expensive."

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

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

More AWS Shield cons

"There’s nothing that’s missing in terms of features."

"I think that better bot protection is needed in this solution."

"Imperva Web Application Firewall could improve the API integration. It was complex for us. Additionally, The onboarding could be better."

"Imperva DDoS does not provide version control."

"I miss being able to integrate the dashboard with other BI tools we are using. We have to export and import data to be able to present it, and doing so is a lot of work."

"Support is one thing I wish Imperva could improve."

"The user interface could be better."

"Imperva always needs to adjust to new versions of cyber attacks, it needs to be faster, improve the resiliency of the software of the solution."

More Imperva Application Security Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

"The tool's pricing is good."

"The tool is cheap."

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

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

"The price of this solution is a little bit high compared to competitors."

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

"It's an excellent product, but it can be very costly."

"The license is on a yearly basis."

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

"Make sure you understand the way that Imperva charges. It's very affordable. However, I would like to see a package with the Virtual Patching included. You get to do patching separately."

More Imperva Application Security Platform pricing and cost advice

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.

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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

10%

Financial Services Firm

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing 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...

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 ...

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.

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.

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...

Azure DDoS Protection vs AWS Shield

Comparisons

Cloudflare vs AWS Shield

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Cloudflare One vs AWS Shield

Compared 16% 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

AWS Shield

Download AWS Shield product report

Imperva Application Security Platform

Download Imperva Application Security Platform product report

Imperva Application Security Platform 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.

AWS Shield vs. Imperva Application Security Platform