AWS Shield vs Arbor DDoS comparison

NETSCOUT and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are both solutions in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category. NETSCOUT is ranked #3 with an average rating of 9.3, while Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.7. NETSCOUT holds a 9.8% mindshare in DDOS, compared to Amazon Web Services (AWS)’s 4.9% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of NETSCOUT users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users who would recommend it.

Arbor DDoS

Read 56 Arbor DDoS reviews

5,461 Views
5,133 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

AWS Shield

Read 11 AWS Shield reviews

1,995 Views
1,995 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Arbor DDoS

AWS Shield

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Arbor DDoS and AWS Shield are products designed to mitigate DDoS attacks. Arbor DDoS seems to have an edge due to its straightforward pricing and efficient support, while AWS Shield stands out with comprehensive features through its deep integration with AWS services.

Features: Arbor DDoS offers extensive network visibility, advanced threat detection, and detailed reporting. AWS Shield integrates seamlessly with AWS services, providing automated threat monitoring and robust auto-scaling for improved management within AWS environments.

Room for Improvement: Arbor DDoS could enhance its initial setup process to be more cost-effective and simplify integration with non-Arbor products. Meanwhile, AWS Shield may benefit from more tailored customer support, improved reporting details, and enhanced visibility for users outside the AWS ecosystem.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Arbor DDoS provides a structured deployment model with responsive and bespoke customer service. AWS Shield's integration within AWS ensures rapid deployment for existing AWS users, although its customer service may appear less customized compared to Arbor DDoS.

Pricing and ROI: Arbor DDoS typically involves a higher initial setup cost but provides solid ROI through thorough protection and reduced downtime. AWS Shield offers no upfront charges for its Standard tier, presenting a cost-effective option with an ROI linked to its performance and integration within AWS services, despite variations in protection value between each tier.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Shield vs. Arbor DDoS Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Shield vs. Arbor DDoS

December 2025

Download the complete report

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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

Arbor DDoS

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

3rd

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

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

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Arbor DDoS is 9.8%, down from 13.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Shield is 4.9%, down from 6.6% 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 (%)
Arbor DDoS	9.8%
AWS Shield	4.9%
Other	85.3%

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

Featured Reviews

Sanjin Zuhric

Team Lead Network Engineer at Artco Group d.o.o Sarajevo

Reliable protection ensures robust network defense and simplifies DDoS management

I am not sure if we plan to use additional features because we have many vendors and platforms that we support. We use the main function and that is it. The prices for Arbor DDoS are expensive. The licensing is subscription-based. From our sales department, they discuss that prices are very high. A potential improvement could be establishing a contract with Cisco to sell via their channel. This could be beneficial because we work extensively with Cisco. If you are a Cisco partner, you can sell Arbor DDoS. That would be good for customers that are Cisco-based because many customers in Bosnia are Cisco-based customers. BH Telecom, our main customer, sells Arbor DDoS to other customers for protection. They buy Arbor and sell the product services to others via Internet links. They sell add-on DDoS protection via Arbor DDoS. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Arbor DDoS is not present in many customers. Some customers try to sell it, but they sell other vendors such as F5. Arbor DDoS is mainly seen in telecom operators but not much in other customers.

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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.

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

"There are a number of valuable features in this product, like Cloud Signaling and Threat Intelligence feeds."

"The product allows us to check real-time progress, including latency and network activities."

"I like all the features together as a whole."

"Companies that live from their presence on the internet will get a very high return on investment from Arbor."

"We are able to respond quickly and prevent DDoS attacks."

"Arbor has a global ranking in reliability and credibility. They are very unique and can respond to a very wide scope of threats from their global deployment."

"In the GUI, the packet capture is a very good option, as is the option to block an IP address."

"We can reduce the bandwidth to minimize the attack level. If we see more than 2.5 GBs we drop it directly."

More Arbor DDoS pros

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

"I am impressed with the product's multiple features like security."

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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

Cons

"For troubleshooting problems, it's not so intuitive. It's not straightforward. This is the core of their kernel, so they need to improve it a little bit... In F5 I have full control of everything."

"On the application layer, they could have a better distributed traffic flow. They could improve that a bit. For network data it is very effective, but the application layer can be improved."

"The product could have end-to-end platform visibility."

"I think Arbor DDoS needs improvement in areas where competitors like S5, Redver, or NETSCOUT offer web application firewall functionality or dedicated web application firewall devices. Arbor lacks these features, which is a significant disadvantage. Yes, I would like to see these features introduced in Arbor as well. Regarding real-time detection capabilities, Arbor DDoS works very well. We and our customers are very satisfied with its performance. However, it would benefit from adding Web Application Firewall (WAF) capabilities to reach a larger customer base."

"The solution needs to enhance its features to compete with other tools."

"It could include a lot of enhancements related to AI and automation."

"Implementation could be better."

"There is always room for improvement for any product or service. If we can bring in more agility when deploying services, that is definitely a scope which we can work towards. Nowadays, everything is being offered as a service model. It is not that we have to deploy the physical hardware, many things move up to the cloud, or even can be delivered in the VNS form in the customer's environment as well. So, in that space, if we can add more features to make it more seamless for customers to use and make it available through some marketplace, not only at the hyperscalers, but also for any on-prem deployment, that definitely would be a big plus."

More Arbor DDoS cons

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

"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."

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

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

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

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

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

"The product is expensive."

More AWS Shield cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is slightly on the higher side."

"It is an expensive product. I use this product for its different features."

"The pricing of the solution is cheap."

"Start with a small license. Measure your bandwidth requirements."

"Our customers always complain about the price of the product."

"I believe that the price of Arbor DDoS falls under the bracket of medium to high price."

"Arbor is striking a good balance between pricing and what they deliver."

"We do not use the Arbor Cloud DDoS solution because it is too costly."

More Arbor DDoS 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."

"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."

"The tool is cheap."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Comms Service Provider

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	25
Midsize Enterprise	14
Large Enterprise	29

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

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

I would say if it’s an ISP that will build a scrubbing center, Netscout/Arbor is a good solution. In all other solutions, Imperva is a great choice.

See all answers

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

Arbor would be the best bid, apart from Arbor, Palo Alto and Fortinet have good solutions. As this is an ISP, I would prefer Arbor.

See all answers

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

The prices for Arbor DDoS are expensive. The licensing is subscription-based. From our sales department, they discuss that prices are very high.

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 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

Comparisons

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Compared 20% of the time

Cloudflare vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 13% of the time

Corero vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 7% of the time

Fortinet FortiDDoS vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 6% of the time

A10 Thunder TPS vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 6% of the time

More Arbor DDoS Competitors

Cloudflare vs AWS Shield

Compared 24% of the time

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 8% of the time

Fortinet FortiDDoS vs AWS Shield

Compared 3% of the time

More AWS Shield Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Arbor DDoS

January 2026

Download Arbor DDoS product report

Buyer's Guide

AWS Shield

January 2026

Download AWS Shield product report

Also Known As

Arbor Networks SP, Arbor Networks TMS, Arbor Cloud for ENT

No data available

Overview

Arbor DDoS offers a comprehensive defense system against DDoS attacks, integrating a user-friendly GUI and advanced threat mitigation technologies for enhanced network protection.

Arbor DDoS is recognized for its ability to manage high-volume DDoS attacks efficiently, providing extensive protection through real-time traffic analysis and automated threat detection. It utilizes advanced techniques such as blackhole and BGP Flowspec for effective threat management. Arbor's cloud signaling allows users to handle and mitigate volumetric attacks while maintaining service availability. Though it provides robust security features, users note potential improvements in auto-mitigation, scalability, and AI integration. Challenges like an outdated graphical interface, hardware stability, and false positives need addressing to further enhance its usability and integration with third-party systems.

What are the key features of Arbor DDoS?

User-Friendly GUI: Provides an intuitive interface for ease of use.
Effective Mitigation: Combats high-volume DDoS attacks effectively.
Predefined Filters: Simplifies threat management with pre-configured settings.
Real-Time Traffic Analysis: Offers insights into traffic patterns and potential threats.
Automated Threat Detection: Identifies and mitigates threats without manual intervention.
Able to Handle High-Volume Attacks: Ensures extensive protection even under large-scale attacks.
Packet Capture and Integration: Facilitates comprehensive security analysis.
Cloud Signaling: Enhances attack traffic management through hybrid deployments.

What benefits should users expect from Arbor DDoS?

Enhanced Protection: Safeguards networks from diverse DDoS threats.
Improved Service Availability: Maintains business operations without disruptions.
Timely Reporting: Delivers detailed attack reports for proactive prevention.
AI Capabilities: Leverages AI for smarter threat mitigation strategies.
Comprehensive Security: Combines on-premise and cloud deployments for optimal defense.

Internet service providers and telecom companies commonly adopt Arbor DDoS to protect their networks and infrastructure from DDoS attacks. It is also implemented in financial and government sectors to ensure web application security and maintain high availability. Arbor DDoS supports a hybrid approach, utilizing both on-premise and cloud solutions to manage traffic efficiently and sustain service quality during attacks.

NETSCOUT

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)

Sample Customers

Xtel Communications

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

Buyer's Guide

AWS Shield vs. Arbor DDoS

December 2025

Free Report: AWS Shield vs. Arbor DDoS

Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Shield vs. Arbor DDoS and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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