Arbor DDoS vs Fortinet FortiDDoS comparison

NETSCOUT and Fortinet are both solutions in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category. NETSCOUT is ranked #3 with an average rating of 9.1, while Fortinet is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.0. NETSCOUT holds a 6.6% mindshare in DDOS, compared to Fortinet’s 2.1% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of NETSCOUT users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of Fortinet users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Arbor DDoS and Fortinet FortiDDoS compete in the realm of DDoS protection. Arbor DDoS holds the advantage due to its superior reporting, traffic visualization, and flexible deployment options.

Features: Arbor DDoS provides advanced reporting, real-time packet capture, and a hybrid protection approach, making it suitable for ISPs and large enterprises. Its precise traffic filtering significantly enhances security. Fortinet FortiDDoS offers specific protection resources and support, beneficial for targeted network defense, despite not offering the high-level insights that Arbor provides.

Room for Improvement: Arbor DDoS could improve its auto-mitigation to reduce the impact on legitimate traffic and enhance scalability with better integration with non-Arbor technologies. Fortinet FortiDDoS requires upgrades to manage higher bandwidths efficiently and could benefit from improved application traffic management beyond network layer protection.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Arbor provides multiple deployment options, including hybrid cloud and on-premises, whereas Fortinet offers only on-premises deployment. Both receive positive remarks for customer service and technical support, although Arbor's support team is highly rated for its expertise and resolution efficiency.

Pricing and ROI: Arbor DDoS is priced higher but is seen to provide positive ROI, especially for larger enterprises, justified by comprehensive features. Fortinet FortiDDoS is cost-effective yet still expensive for SMBs, with limitations in scalability. Both solutions help maintain uptime and reduce potential financial losses from DDoS attacks, though Arbor's ROI stands out in larger deployments.

To learn more, read our detailed Arbor DDoS vs. Fortinet FortiDDoS Report (Updated: June 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Arbor DDoS vs. Fortinet FortiDDoS

June 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 June 2026, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 13.2%, down from 19.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Arbor DDoS is 6.6%, down from 12.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiDDoS is 2.1%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cloudflare	13.2%
Arbor DDoS	6.6%
Fortinet FortiDDoS	2.1%
Other	78.1%

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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Dmytro Okhrushchak

CTO at UkrNet

Customer interface and support have impressed while artificial intelligence features drive confidence

Arbor DDoS has some difficult pricing rules. For many different small features, we have to pay additional fees for every small feature. If we compare it, it is slightly high and not very affordable. If I compare it to automobiles, when you buy Volkswagen and then consider Skoda, for the cheapest way, you would buy Skoda. But if you want similar features to Volkswagen, you have to pay a little bit more than for Volkswagen. As I mentioned, a good way would be to buy some package of features at small prices. That is one of my recommendations for the company. I would like to see a roadmap for one or two years, and it is tough to predict what will happen in that timeframe without a clearer description.

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Marcos AntonioOliveira

IT Analyst at Evapco, Inc.

Reliable protection and smooth setup enhance company security

Currently, I have two firewalls, with one located in Sorocaba, model 90D, and the other in São Paulo, model 30D. They are connected by VPN. I use the firewalls for VPN and final protection for my company, and my equipment is maintained by an internet company called Multiprox The equipment works…

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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

"Using the CDN of Cloudflare improved the speed significantly, reducing the page loading times to appropriate levels."

"The attacker won't have details since my public IP is anonymous. It offers us good privacy."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is external DNS. It is also very secure. They have their own main server and once you configure it, the product takes care of everything. There are no issues in resolving IPs and low latency is also present."

"The UI is good."

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

"Its ease of integration with Office 365 and the fact that it's a good product compared to what I had before"

"The overall performance of this solution is what makes it one of the best solutions on the market."

"There is no service as mature as Cloudflare that is also as easy to use, reliable, and hosted from excellent infrastructure."

More Cloudflare pros

"Arbor has the ability to learn and self-create the appropriate profile for each customer, ensuring that false positives are kept to a minimum."

"It has an easy-to-understand GUI...Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"Its scalability is big. It is for large deployments of big organizations and service providers."

"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."

"It prevents all unwanted or malicious traffic, using the Threat Intelligence feeds."

"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."

"Valuable features include simple and centralized management of user access and capabilities, as well as Web 2.0 interactive attack alerting, traffic visualization, and mitigation service control."

"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..."

More Arbor DDoS pros

"The most valuable feature is the cloud DDoS scrubbing capability."

"It allows me to see all the traffic on my network."

"Compared to other DDoS mitigation solutions with similar deployment, FortiDDoS does not require a 24x7 NOC and has lower TCO."

"We have researched them all, and it's a good solution all around."

"The product allows the users to adjust the thresholds."

"Among its key features: Detects and mitigates DDoS attacks at L3 to L7; negligible to zero false-positives; Generates and sends reports without the need for an expensive third-party solution."

"The equipment works very well, and I have not encountered any issues with it. It is a good solution for my company."

"I find the interface easy to use."

More Fortinet FortiDDoS pros

Cons

"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."

"Technical support is lacking."

"Access to the solution's dashboards is not intended for a service company. You are practically blind, and to validate a problem, you must view the customer's screen."

"The reporting can definitely be improved to offer a lot more explanation on something that may have happened or has actually happened."

"There should be a specific price list for enterprise-level customers."

"Yes, there were a few times when some of their CDN nodes would fail, creating serious speed issues with the site without any warning or notification from their side."

"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."

"The Always Online feature has room for improvement. It seems to work sometimes and not others even with the pro version."

More Cloudflare cons

"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."

"Support in Argentina is not so good. Although the team is good, they are not fast, and they lack the skills to manage dynamic attackers."

"It is an expensive product, so there is room for improvement in terms of pricing."

"If we want to see live traffic, we can see do so. But once an attack that lasts for five minutes is done, the data is no longer there. It would be an improvement if we could see recent traffic in the dashboard. We can check and download live traffic, but a past attack, with all the details, such as why it happened and how to mitigate and prevent such future attacks, would be helpful to see."

"Because we had some routers that were somewhat old, they were not integrated with Arbor. They did not support the NetFlow version that Arbor was running. That was a challenge. We had to upgrade the routers. Some backward-compatibility would be helpful."

"This is a disadvantage of Arbor DDoS, as it operates merely as a flow collector, generating alerts only after a violation occurs."

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

"In the default filter mode, there could be an impact on a customer’s link."

More Arbor DDoS cons

"Earlier versions of firmware had bugs that limit my options."

"I find that there have been issues in the past year with the solution hanging. It freezes often."

"Technical support isn't too good with Fortinet. They could be more responsive and helpful overall."

"The only thing they need to do is to automate it. Today, you must create tools that do not require the use of an expert or anyone with special skills."

"The solution can be a little more user-friendly and it can be more affordable."

"The product’s pricing needs improvement."

"All those thresholds that need to be configured should be included in the default so that user will not forget or misconfigure."

"I would like to see analytics, big data."

More Fortinet FortiDDoS cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"The price of the solution is expensive."

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

"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."

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

"The product's pricing is cheap."

"We don't have any issues with the price."

"For Cloudflare, I recommend it heavily for small businesses with revenue under a couple of million dollars. Onboarding is easy, and they even have a free plan. This makes it simple for businesses in the $100,000-$500,000 range to try it out and see its value, allowing them to scale up their infrastructure as needed."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"You need to find a way to get a good offering from Arbor by negotiating a price. That is the challenge."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The solution is a bit costly if you're a small organization, but I think it's worth the price that they are charging."

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

"The price of this solution is a little high in the African market, it should be lower."

"The price is a little high."

More Arbor DDoS pricing and cost advice

"The solution is reasonably priced."

"The product’s pricing needs improvement."

"It's quite pricey."

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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

15%

Comms Service Provider

14%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Computer Software 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	10
Large Enterprise	6

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare DNS?

The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Cloudflare are a bit on the higher side overall.

See all answers

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 Fortinet FortiDDoS?

Fortinet FortiDDoS offers lower costs compared to other solutions. The licensing costs are annually renewed.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiDDoS?

There is a need for more features that protect personal information, especially given the PDP issue in Indonesia.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Fortinet FortiDDoS?

I am looking for a UTM for my customers as I am from a system integrator company.

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 36% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

Fastly 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 12% of the time

Corero vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 7% of the time

A10 Thunder TPS vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 5% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 4% of the time

Azure DDoS Protection vs Arbor DDoS

Compared 4% of the time

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Radware DDoS vs Fortinet FortiDDoS

Compared 14% of the time

VMware NSX vs Fortinet FortiDDoS

Compared 7% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Fortinet FortiDDoS

Compared 7% of the time

Nexusguard DDoS Protection vs Fortinet FortiDDoS

Compared 7% of the time

Akamai App and API Protector vs Fortinet FortiDDoS

Compared 5% of the time

More Fortinet FortiDDoS Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

June 2026

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

Arbor DDoS

June 2026

Download Arbor DDoS product report

Buyer's Guide

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection

May 2026

Download Fortinet FortiDDoS product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

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

Fortinet DDoS, FortiDDos

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

Fortinet FortiDDoS provides comprehensive protection against DDoS attacks across layers 3 to 7. It efficiently minimizes false positives and is valued for real-time attack monitoring, cloud DDoS scrubbing, and multi-layer security, leveraging purpose-built ASICs for high performance.

Fortinet FortiDDoS is favored for its robust defense capabilities in DDoS detection and mitigation, supporting sophisticated security infrastructures. Its purpose-built ASICs ensure effective performance without reliance on signature-based detection. While it offers strong features like attack monitoring and cloud scrubbing, users identify challenges with its complex setup and web interface. Additionally, the need for simplified features, enhanced application traffic management, and better alerts is crucial especially when handling sensitive data. Priced competitively, it presents scalability concerns particularly in on-premises environments.

What are Fortinet FortiDDoS's key features?

DDoS Detection: Protects infrastructure from layers 3 to 7 with minimal false positives.
Real-Time Monitoring: Enables instant attack detection and response.
Cloud Scrubbing: Offers cloud-based DDoS mitigation to cleanse traffic.
Purpose-Built ASICs: Ensures performance without reliance on signatures.
Multi-Layer Protection: Comprehensive security across different network layers.

What benefits should users expect from Fortinet FortiDDoS?

Enhanced Security: Protects against a wide range of DDoS threats.
Performance Optimization: Improves network traffic management.
Cost Efficiency: Competitive pricing with powerful capabilities.
Effective Mitigation: Reduces risks with real-time threats monitoring.
User Data Protection: Safeguards personal and sensitive information.

Fortinet FortiDDoS is widely used in internet datacenters with multiple upstreams to protect infrastructure and customers from potential threats. Companies deploy Fortinet appliances for managing network traffic and ensuring optimal performance. They rely on it for safeguarding web pages, web services, and networks while benefiting from ease of troubleshooting and effective VPN connections, critical for application-based attack defense.

Fortinet

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

Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data

Buyer's Guide

Arbor DDoS vs. Fortinet FortiDDoS

June 2026

Free Report: Arbor DDoS vs. Fortinet FortiDDoS

Find out what your peers are saying about Arbor DDoS vs. Fortinet FortiDDoS and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.

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