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Arbor DDoS vs F5 Shape Security comparison

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Executive Summary

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
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
74
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (14th)
Arbor DDoS
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (3rd)
F5 Shape Security
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Fraud Detection and Prevention (6th), Bot Management (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
Fraud Detection and Prevention
 

Featured Reviews

Spencer Malmad - PeerSpot reviewer
It's easy to set up because you point the DNS to it, and it's working in under 15 minutes
Cloudflare is highly scalable. Cloudflare is a system with a web portal that the end users like me see. It's a console where we can adjust the DNS, caching, and security features all in that console. Cloudflare owns thousands of servers across the world that cache the data. It's a powerful solution. When clients sign up for Cloudflare, they're getting this monster content delivery network, security, and a web application firewall in one. It's all rolled into one, and it's massive. Unless you have your website hosted on a massive hosting provider, there's no way that you can deliver the amount of data that Cloudflare can provide to the end users. If you have static content, there's no way that you can ever match what Cloudflare can do. Obviously, there are competitors to Cloudflare that do the same, but I'm saying other types of solutions. Let's say you go with F5. Great, that's on-prem. That's in your colo. You can't deliver as much data to the internet as you can with a CDN. You don't have to spend $20,000 on a net scaler, F5, or whatever Cisco's selling now. You don't have to buy that. You pay them $50 a month or $150 a month. It's totally worth it because even in five years, you'll never get the performance value, not just the actual ROI. You have to consider how much throughput you can get with Cloudflare.
Tushar Sail - PeerSpot reviewer
A critical solution for security, as it includes features that can automatically detect and prevent DDoS attacks
Arbor DDoS offers security features that automatically detect and prevent DDoS attacks. When a DDoS attack is detected targeting a specific IP, the Arbor device immediately becomes in line with the traffic and actively works to prevent the attack. This auto feature is one of the best aspects of Arbor DDoS, as it ensures timely and effective protection against such attacks.
Nikolay Dimitrov - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to configure and blocks bot attacks for web users
The solution is deployed on the F5 cloud. The solution's real-time analytics help you see what has been blocked. It helps to see whether the attack category was an automation attack or a fake browser. F5 Shape Security has a normal dashboard. We are doing F5 Shape Security migrations for 30 customers. F5 Shape Security uses Javascript. For a lot of competitors, the Javascript can be reverse-engineered by attackers to bypass the protection. F5 Shape Security has machine learning authentication of the Java script. If you had hacked it, the encryption would have been changed. It's really hard for attackers to reverse engineer the F5 Shape Security JavaScript. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I rate its stability a ten out of ten."
"Cloudflare allows us to self-host services such as Rocket.Chat and Node-RED, in high-availability mode, thanks to round robin DNS which allows us to share one hostname between our two locations."
"Easier http to https redirect using page rules"
"Smaller businesses have seen great ROI due to the low investment and strong performance."
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare DNS is its global reach and it is always evolving."
"DDoS attacks target unprotected machines. Cloudflare detects and stops these attacks using internal systems. It identifies incoming DDoS attacks, issuing challenges or blocking them immediately."
"We're using dynamic components to build flexible pages to create and manage Git merge requests for code and reviews."
"From what I've seen so far, there are no negatives to report as of yet"
"It has an easy-to-understand GUI...Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"I highly recommend Arbor DDoS to others."
"Analytics and its attack mitigation capabilities are valuable features of the solution."
"I recommend using Arbor DDoS for those wanting to keep their services online."
"Arbor DDoS offers security features that automatically detect and prevent DDoS attacks."
"Our customers are very happy when we provide them with the interface... They can check how many attacks they have faced and how many attacks have been blocked."
"The quality of the technical support provided by Arbor DDoS is premium."
"It's very flexible and we can easily deploy it to our network. It's very user-friendly. We can do everything via the web interface and troubleshoot easily from the CLI. It's not complicated."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the ease of configuration."
"F5 Shape Security's most valuable feature is performance."
 

Cons

"For large enterprises, the pricing is okay. However, the enterprise price for small projects is a bit high. A mid-tier pricing option would be beneficial."
"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."
"The analytics, basically the dashboard, doesn't have much to it."
"Sometimes their more advanced caching tools can cause higher first-byte times and problems with JavaScript."
"Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to buy Cloudflare in my country."
"The solution could use more analytics on the backend to give us more insights into everything. More reports would be helpful."
"The integration of LLMs on the dashboard is something that is needed in the tool."
"In the last two years, there has been a certain amount of downtime when using the VDM."
"An issue which needs to be addressed concerns information I received of attacks on the radar and Arbor, allegedly, not taking any action."
"The following areas need improvement: opening and tracking support tickets, online support resources, software upgrades/updates and replacement media, and event management guidelines."
"Real-case scenarios that have taken too long to resolve or were escalated can be directly converted into articles."
"The solution's IT support needs improvement."
"We need a SaaS model for the solution."
"Arbor's SSL decryption is confusing and needs external cards to be installed in the devices. This is not the best solution from an architectural point of view for protecting HTTPS and every other protocol that is SSL encrypted."
"The regional support here in African could improve, such as marketing and account managers."
"There is definitely room for improvement in third-party intelligence and integrations."
"The tool's price is high."
"I want the solution's custom exclusion rules to be more granular."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."
"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."
"In terms of licensing costs, we don't pay for licensing for Cloudflare. We only establish communication, then for peering, Cloudflare takes care of the cross-connection in different data centers."
"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."
"We are using the free version."
"I give the price a five out of ten."
"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."
"I believe that the price of Arbor DDoS falls under the bracket of medium to high price."
"The solution's pricing is based on a licensing model that is expensive when compared to other tools."
"As far as I know, they are the best in this sector, in DDoS protection. They know it, I know, because their service prices are too high. They provide cloud DDoS protection for ISPs, but that is also too expensive."
"Arbor's products are very expensive. Their competitors are cheap when compared with Arbor."
"The price of Arbor DDoS depends on many parameters. It depends on the physical capacity of the environment, and it is not a straight-line price. It's fairly competitive in the market on the price."
"The price is a little high."
"Our customers always complain about the price of the product."
"The solution is a bit costly if you're a small organization, but I think it's worth the price that they are charging."
"The solution is moderately priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
21%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
32%
Healthcare Company
10%
Retailer
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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...
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...
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.
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 soluti...
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...
What do you like most about Arbor DDoS?
The quality of the technical support provided by Arbor DDoS is premium.
What makes automation distinct as an attack vector?
An aspect that sets automation apart as an attack vector is its ability to mimic legitimate user behavior and evade t...
How does F5 Shape Security’s system work? What are its components?
One key component is the Shape Defense Engine. It sends telemetry to the Shape AI Cloud, a highly secure data system ...
Can F5 Shape Security protect both our web and mobile applications? Are there any specific features for mobile app protection?
F5 Shape Security can protect web apps as well. It’s a bit complicated, but goes something like this: The platform em...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
Arbor Networks SP, Arbor Networks TMS, Arbor Cloud for ENT
Shape Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.
Xtel Communications
Wells Fargo, Loblaw, JetBlue, Zoosk
Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare, Radware, NETSCOUT and others in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.