Arbor DDoS vs Fastly comparison

NETSCOUT and Fastly are both solutions in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category. NETSCOUT is ranked #2 with an average rating of 9.1, while Fastly is ranked #9 with an average rating of 9.0. NETSCOUT holds a 7.2% mindshare in DDOS, compared to Fastly’s 3.5% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of NETSCOUT users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Fastly users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Arbor DDoS and Fastly compete in cybersecurity and content delivery. Fastly appears to have the upper hand with its comprehensive features that effectively balance with investment costs.

Features: Arbor DDoS provides advanced threat intelligence, robust network protection, and effective mitigation strategies focused on security. Fastly offers a fast content delivery network, real-time traffic visibility, and superior edge computing capabilities optimal for speed and efficiency.

Room for Improvement: Arbor DDoS could enhance user interface simplicity, faster deployment, and greater automation for ease-of-use. Fastly could improve security integrations, enhance reporting detail, and expand its zero-trust capabilities to compete better in security-focused markets.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Arbor DDoS requires a more intricate setup due to its security focus, demanding specialized support but offering responsive customer service for maintenance. Fastly offers streamlined deployment and is known for its quick-resolution customer service enhancing hassle-free integration.

Pricing and ROI: Arbor DDoS involves higher initial investment due to comprehensive security features, ensuring substantial ROI by risk reduction. Fastly provides a competitive pricing model, delivering excellent value in speed optimization and network efficiency, emphasizing operational enhancement over security ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Arbor DDoS vs. Fastly Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Arbor DDoS vs. Fastly

April 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

Cloudflare

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 14.0%, down from 19.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Arbor DDoS is 7.2%, down from 13.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fastly is 3.5%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Arbor DDoS	7.2%
Cloudflare	14.0%
Fastly	3.5%
Other	75.3%

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

Featured Reviews

M.A. Faisal

General Manager at bKash Limited

Advanced protection has secured critical web workloads and provides clear traffic visibility

From a security perspective, there remains a security loophole, as some browsers in the market can bypass the Turnstile solution, which requires approximately 40 seconds to do so. From a performance perspective, this is acceptable. We also tried Google reCAPTCHA, and that can also be bypassed. From a security perspective, I would say neither solution is completely secured. Regarding uptime, we have faced a couple of incidents due to Cloudflare in recent years, so I cannot say we receive 100% uptime for our region. We sometimes face challenges, including downtime and other issues. As a result, we are not receiving 100% uptime from Cloudflare's solution. Since most of our customers are in this region, we need alternatives. We need something more competitive than Cloudflare. Unfortunately, in Bangladesh, Cloudflare has three points of presence already, and we cannot find any other solution provider in Bangladesh as an alternative, which presents another challenge. Competitor solutions have more attack signatures, which ensure better security compared to Cloudflare's predefined configurations. Customers do not have options to modify any configuration parameters in Cloudflare, whereas other competitor solutions, such as F5 Distributed Cloud, allow customers to tune configurations according to their requirements. Cloudflare could improve in this area. Additionally, regarding visibility, Cloudflare has static visibility, but they could adopt dynamic graph features for their customers.

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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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Pranay Jain

Senior software developer at Simplifyvms

Edge caching has transformed response times and delivers faster candidate data globally

Fastly can be improved in certain areas such as VCL, which is powerful but has a steep learning curve for normal users. A more user-friendly, UI-based configuration could simplify the experience, alongside better templates for common use cases and dashboard improvements, as the current dashboard feels complex for beginners, and pricing can be hard to predict for smaller companies. I chose 8 out of 10 because it has excellent performance and low latency delivery, making it suitable for larger applications, with strong Edge Caching and instant purging capabilities. However, VCL complexity and pricing predictability, especially for smaller companies, along with a user-friendly dashboard are areas impacting my score.

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

"The overall experience with Cloudflare is positive, with a rating of eight out of ten."

"The aggressive caching and DDOS mitigation are the most valuable features offered by Cloudflare."

"It is very clear and the information is very useful."

"Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications."

"Cloudflare consolidates various capabilities into one product, streamlining processes."

"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."

"Many websites require an SSL certificate because they sell stuff and want SSL. Cloudflare comes with an SSL certificate built in. It's automatic. You sign yourself up for Cloudflare, and an SSL certificate automatically protects your website. You don't necessarily need a certificate if you have a connection between your website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host."

"Generally, I am satisfied with this product."

More Cloudflare pros

"Don't worry that it is complex because, out-of-the-box, it protects you from the basics."

"I recommend using Arbor DDoS for those wanting to keep their services online."

"The AI capabilities and anomaly detection using machine learning modules like isolation forests and auto-encoders are the most effective in mitigating DDoS attacks."

"The technical support of Arbor DDoS is good."

"Arbor DDoS is easy to use, provides effective blocking of DDoS attacks, and can be used for DNS, web, and main servers. Additionally, this solution is far easier to operate than others solutions, such as Fortinet DDoS."

"The artificial intelligence feature is most appreciated, as this solution can lower the throughput and clear the traffic, which is really important for us, and it also provides good protection."

"We use it not only for DDoS detection and protection, but we also use it for traffic analysis and capacity planning as well. We've also been able to extend the use of it to other security measures within our company, the front-line defense, not only for DDoS, but for any kind of scanning malware that may be picked up. It's also used for outbound attacks, which has helped us mitigate those and lower our bandwidth costs..."

"There were huge attacks in October, around 62 attacks at 30 gigabits per second, at one of our banks. We used Arbor DDoS to mitigate these attacks, and it performed great."

More Arbor DDoS pros

"Fastly combines both the CDN side and the Signal Sciences next-generation WAF, which is closely integrated with the CDN, allowing us to use both products seamlessly."

"In summary, this solution is easy to manage, quick to deploy, and all of my customers are happy."

"Support is good; the product works as advertised. We have a Slack connection with them. So we can basically ask for help, live, engage, and ring when they respond. Very quickly."

"Compute@Edge features are valuable to me."

"Its initial setup process is straightforward."

"The product's initial setup phase is straightforward."

"Fastly provides CDN, WAF, image optimization, and IP restriction."

"Rate limiting is a good feature that protects from volumetric attacks."

More Fastly pros

Cons

"We have noticed multiple instances where Cloudflare falsely indicates that our servers are down, even when there is no actual load on them. This makes it challenging for us to identify the exact issue."

"I think the APIs are a little bit hard for us to work with. The APIs could be more open so that we could integrate better with our SolarWinds or our monitoring solution."

"It would be good if Cloudflare could have more servers for better traffic routing or an increase in the traffic routed."

"I think the APIs are a little bit hard for us to work with. The APIs could be more open so that we could integrate better with our SolarWinds or our monitoring solution."

"Cloudflare's free plan is limited to 5,000 records for their free plan. They should increase that. For example, if I create a domain called abc.com and a subdomain called a.abc.com, my record count will be two. I can make a maximum of 5,000 subdomains. However, if we use our own DNS hosted on another provider, there is no limit. Their free plan also lacks name server customization."

"Flexible SSL is nothing more than an illusion of security that you're presenting to your visitors."

"The solution could use more analytics on the backend to give us more insights into everything."

"I think they have failed with their technical support."

More Cloudflare cons

"Sometimes it blocks legitimate traffic. If a legitimate user is trying to access the server continuously, the product suspects that this is a DoS traffic file. That is a case where it needs to improve. It needs machine-learning."

"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."

"If we want to see live traffic, we can do so, but once an attack that lasts for five minutes is done, the data is no longer there."

"Arbor DDoS has some difficult pricing rules. For many different small features, we have to pay additional fees for every small feature."

"An improvement to Arbor DDoS would be to make evaluation licenses and virtual machines available."

"The solution's shortcomings are related to its documentation, so it's an area that needs to improve."

"The solution's IT support needs improvement."

"The implementation should be made easier."

More Arbor DDoS cons

"What I don't like about Fastly is that they charge a heavy price."

"The solution's pricing could be better."

"Fastly's customer service area needs improvement."

"The product should provide improved bot detection and management."

"Fastly can be improved in certain areas such as VCL, which is powerful but has a steep learning curve for normal users."

"It's not easy to start with Fastly if you don't have VCL knowledge, so it appears very complex at the beginning."

"Support is not that great."

"Stronger analytics would be helpful, like showing configurations that haven't served a certain amount of traffic in a while. With many properties, things can get lost track of - duplicates or unused configurations not properly decommissioned."

More Fastly cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."

"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."

"It's a premium model. You can start at zero and work your way up to the enterprise model, which has a very high pricing level."

"That is one of the great features. I was able to access the majority of the features and services for free."

"I give the price a five out of ten."

"The price is reasonable."

"The pricing depends on the usage, but the cheapest would be around 5,000 USD a month."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"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."

"There is room for improvement with the pricing. It is an expensive solution. The issue with the pricing is more the way it is built. Right now we're paying per router, and there's a limitation there. I would like to see bundle-pricing where there is an overall solution cost."

"Pricing is slightly on the higher side."

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

"Arbor DDoS is quite expensive, but all these solutions are expensive because they deal with confidential information."

"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."

"The price is a little high."

"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."

More Arbor DDoS pricing and cost advice

"Fastly is less expensive than one of its competitors."

"The pricing has been very competitive."

"In my opinion, Fastly is priced competitively."

"It is an expensive solution."

"I've generally found Fastly to be very competitive in pricing, especially around Compute@Edge."

"The solution is cheaper than other products in the market."

"You need to pay a premium price for the tool."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Comms Service Provider

13%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	26

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	26
Midsize Enterprise	14
Large Enterprise	29

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Large Enterprise	5

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...

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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...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare?

The tool's pricing is moderate. I rate the product’s pricing a five out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expens...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fastly?

You need to pay a premium price for the tool.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Fastly?

I believe that Fastly should provide guidelines for their WAF blocking rules. It should be public what the rules are ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Fastly?

I am using Fastly in the Adobe Commerce Cloud project. In this project, it is working as a reverse proxy for CDN and ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 40% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

Wiz vs Cloudflare

Compared 1% of the time

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Radware DDoS vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 13% of the time

Corero vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 7% of the time

Fortinet FortiDDoS vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 5% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 5% of the time

A10 Thunder TPS vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 5% of the time

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Akamai vs Fastly

Compared 17% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Fastly

Compared 9% of the time

Uplynk vs Fastly

Compared 5% of the time

Amazon CloudFront vs Fastly

Compared 4% of the time

AWS WAF vs Fastly

Compared 4% of the time

More Fastly Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

May 2026

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

Arbor DDoS

May 2026

Download Arbor DDoS product report

Buyer's Guide

Fastly

May 2026

Download Fastly product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

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

No data available

Overview

Cloudflare enhances web performance and security with features like CDN caching and DDoS mitigation while providing easy DNS management and intuitive setup through its user-friendly dashboard.

Cloudflare is recognized for its comprehensive web security and performance solutions. Speed improvements are achieved through caching mechanisms and DDoS protection, combining ease of DNS management with flexible page rules. The robust analytics and threat insight tools provide valuable data, assisted by a user-friendly dashboard allowing quick setup and configuration. An API offers dynamic DNS settings ensuring low latency and high performance across the globe.

What are Cloudflare's key features?

CDN Caching: Enhances website speed through content delivery network caching.
Web Application Firewall: Protects websites from online threats.
DDoS Mitigation: Shields against distributed denial-of-service attacks.
DNS Management: Offers easy-to-use and flexible domain management.
SSL Certificates: Ensures secure connections between users and servers.
Analytics: Provides insights with robust analytics tools.

What benefits and ROI should users evaluate?

Enhanced Security: Strengthening web security with DDoS and firewall protection.
Speed Improvement: Faster content delivery with CDN caching.
Operational Simplicity: Simplifies website optimization through a user-friendly interface.
Scalable Solutions: Scales with global reach, lowering latency for improved performance.
Cost Efficiency: Offers layers of valuable functionality with pricing options.

Cloudflare finds utility across industries for DNS management and defense mechanisms. Its content delivery network assures fast content distribution and fortified security. Businesses integrate features like web application firewalls, load balancing, end-to-end SSL, and zero trust to protect websites from cyber threats while ensuring resilience and reliable performance.

Cloudflare

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

Fastly is a leading provider of content delivery network services that enhances website performance through efficient caching and real-time architecture capabilities.

Fastly integrates CDN technology with advanced web application firewall for comprehensive security. Its global infrastructure supports performance enhancement, rapid deployment, and rollback capabilities. Utilizing the VCL language allows custom caching solutions. Compute@Edge provides extensive architectural flexibility, aiding in HTML manipulation and script execution. Users benefit from its stability and reliability features for seamless network protection, log management, image optimization, and A/B testing. Challenges include limited support in mainland China, inadequate WebSocket protocol implementation, and complex pricing structures.

What are the key features of Fastly?

CDN Integration: Delivers content quickly across global Points of Presence.
Signal Sciences’ WAF: Manages security threats effectively.
VCL Language: Offers customizable caching solutions.
Compute@Edge: Enables flexible architecture for HTML manipulation.
Image Optimization: Enhances performance with dynamic image delivery.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Performance Enhancement: Boosts website speed and response time.
Rapid Deployment: Allows for swift implementation and rollback.
Real-Time Visibility: Provides insights into cached content management.
Security and Stability: Ensures reliability against DDoS attacks and other threats.
Flexibility: Offers diverse network protection and infrastructure capabilities.

Fastly is widely implemented in industries needing robust content delivery and security capabilities. Companies use it as a reverse proxy for media delivery, ensuring availability and optimized performance. Its rapid deployment and rollback features are particularly beneficial in technology sectors requiring agile responses to demand shifts.

Fastly

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

Twitter, Airbnb, Alaska Airlines, Pinterest, Vimeo, The Guardian, The New York Times, Ticketmaster, The Drupal Association, Opera, about.com, imgur, Etsy, Foursquare, GitHub, New Relic, shopify, Shazam, Firebase

Buyer's Guide

Arbor DDoS vs. Fastly

April 2026

Free Report: Arbor DDoS vs. Fastly

Find out what your peers are saying about Arbor DDoS vs. Fastly and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.

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