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Arbor DDoS vs F5 Shape Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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

Arbor DDoS
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
56
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 (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Arbor DDoS and F5 Shape Security aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Arbor DDoS is designed for Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection and holds a mindshare of 9.3%, down 13.9% compared to last year.
F5 Shape Security, on the other hand, focuses on Fraud Detection and Prevention, holds 1.4% mindshare, down 1.6% since last year.
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Arbor DDoS9.3%
Cloudflare16.6%
Imperva Application Security Platform8.2%
Other65.9%
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
Fraud Detection and Prevention Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
F5 Shape Security1.4%
ThreatMetrix6.5%
BioCatch4.1%
Other88.0%
Fraud Detection and Prevention
 

Featured Reviews

SZ
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.
Nikolay Dimitrov - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Engineer at Paysafe / IBM
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

"Predefined filters/techniques to easily stop the attacks and start mitigation."
"Arbor has the ability to learn and self-create the appropriate profile for each customer."
"The solution is flexible, easy to implement and has an efficient technical support team."
"Inside this product, there are many different configurations for protection, and we have one of the best experiences with it, specifically with the Atlas product."
"We have taken on the Arbor Cloud subscription, which is really useful because you secure yourself for anything beyond your current mitigation capacity. This is a really good feature of Arbor that is available."
"It is fully mitigating the attacks. We've dealt with other ones where we didn't necessarily see that. The detection is very good. It's also very simple to use. Arbor is a single pane of glass, whereas with other solutions you might have a detection pane of glass and then have to go to a separate interface to deal with the mitigation. That single pane of glass makes it much simpler."
"Arbor DDoS's best feature is that we can put the certificates in, and it will look at layer seven and the encrypted traffic and do the required signaling."
"The most valuable feature of Arbor DDoS is that it is based in most of the ISPs all over the world, and Egyptian ISPs are one of them."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the ease of configuration."
"F5 Shape Security's most valuable feature is performance."
 

Cons

"On the main page there are alerts that we are unable to clear, even though the issue has been resolved."
"The solution's shortcomings are related to its documentation, so it's an area that needs to improve."
"The following areas need improvement: opening and tracking support tickets, online support resources, software upgrades/updates and replacement media, and event management guidelines."
"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."
"Arbor Pravail APS devices do not sync features or config the backup enough. This needs to be improved."
"There is definitely room for improvement in third-party intelligence and integrations."
"An improvement to Arbor DDoS would be to make evaluation licenses and virtual machines available."
"Auto mitigation is a feature provided when DDoS is observed on any of link/customer (configured under auto mitigation). It automatically starts mitigation with default filters. In default filter mode, there could be an impact on the customer’s link,"
"The tool's price is high."
"I want the solution's custom exclusion rules to be more granular."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We do not use the Arbor Cloud DDoS solution because it is too costly."
"I believe that the price of Arbor DDoS falls under the bracket of medium to high price."
"I don't deal with the pricing, but it seems that you need to get basic support in order to upgrade the software and implement some patches."
"Arbor DDoS is quite expensive, but all these solutions are expensive because they deal with confidential information."
"I'm a technical guy. But I know it's expensive compared to its competitors. After you have the on-premise solution, for your solution to be effective you have to subscribe to an "upper level," so there's another cost. There is also a subscription to cloud services, which is another cost."
"Regarding pricing, I would rate it as average. Arbor DDoS offers good value for money with our DDoS filter device. For higher protection needs, Arbor’s CloudMeter’s DDoS mitigation or hardware devices might be more expensive, but customers who need them are usually prepared for the cost and the additional resources required."
"It is an expensive product. I use this product for its different features."
"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
Financial Services Firm
15%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
30%
Healthcare Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise29
No data available
 

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.
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.
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.
What do you like most about F5 Shape Security?
The most valuable feature of the solution is the ease of configuration.
What needs improvement with F5 Shape Security?
There could be some improvement in the options to make custom exclusion rules to be more granular. Sometimes, the solution blocks something that you don't want to be blocked. The solution should al...
What advice do you have for others considering F5 Shape Security?
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 brows...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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: January 2026.
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