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AWS Shield vs F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

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
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
CDN (1st), Managed DNS (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (13th)
AWS Shield
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall...
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 19.7%, up from 18.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Shield is 6.4%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) is 1.3%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Alam Hernandez Baruch - PeerSpot reviewer
Fast and secure deployments simplify operations for government and fintech clients
It is a fast and secure DNS. It is very easy to deploy, and my customers are happy with this tool. Additionally, the CDN performance in Mexico is excellent, providing fast service and tools. It offers reliability during high-traffic periods, ensuring no impact on the environment. It helps my clients avoid using on-premise boxes, simplifying operations as they only use the prices on Cloudflare.
Manikandan-R - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution provides essential protection with good support and a simple setup
I have noticed a pattern developing in approximately five minutes. If it were possible to provide these patterns with historical data spanning six months, three months, or two months directly from the console, it would be extremely beneficial. It would allow for easy inquiries and facilitate the retrieval of relevant parts without having to manually check logs or examine movements. Instead, if all historical data were available, I could consult six months' worth of identified patterns efficiently through AWS without relying on external sources. This solution is particularly suitable for startups or medium-sized startups. I would rate the overall solution eight out of ten.
Pawel Augustyn - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides outstanding resource management and application security across multiple geographies
The most valuable features for me are stability, availability, and security, along with the ability to manage multiple features to secure my applications. The solution also monitors and blocks unconventional requests and maintains security efficiently. The scalability feature also allows me to manage and allocate resources dynamically without disrupting production traffic.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's very user-friendly."
"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."
"Even when there is a high load on our servers, Cloudflare is able to cache the data and serve it to users, ensuring they can still access the website."
"I rate its stability a ten out of ten."
"Smaller businesses have seen great ROI due to the low investment and strong performance."
"The attacker won't have details since my public IP is anonymous. It offers us good privacy."
"The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is that it has a free version. They give us the free version with the anti-DDoS features and also the load balancing solution."
"It's a great product because it's scalable, has great coverage, and is mature with good defenses against DDoS attacks."
"It is integrated with AWS. So, it gives you a good first step."
"The solution operates smoothly at its baseline level, and we do not encounter any issues at that level."
"It is quite scalable, and we have not faced any issues with its scalability."
"I am impressed with the product's multiple features like security."
"The product has a good mechanism to analyze trends and trigger events."
"The solution's ease of use is the most valuable feature."
"The product is easy to use."
"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."
"Its performance and ease of use are valuable."
"The customer service is excellent, and I rate it ten out of ten."
"The solution is very straightforward. The usability is great."
"The protection is very useful."
"It is stable."
"F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager's most valuable feature is load balance. It is readily available and uncomplicated."
"The most valuable feature of F5 BIG-IP AFM is the iRules where I can customize the configuration."
"I find the signature base is very helpful to see traffic"
 

Cons

"Cloudflare's console should be made more user-friendly."
"It would be good if Cloudflare could have more servers for better traffic routing or an increase in the traffic routed. This is what I'd like to improve in Cloudflare."
"The pricing could be improved."
"It should be easier to collect the logs with companies like Sumo. However, based on my discussions with the salespeople, I understand that's how they make their money. With the enterprise product, they want people doing those kinds of enterprise features to do the logging. They want them to pay a lot of money, and that's where I have an issue with them. That should be a default. You should be able to get the log no matter what. The logging should be universal."
"Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to buy Cloudflare in my country."
"The integration of LLMs on the dashboard is something that is needed in the tool."
"I believe they currently have this feature, but there will most likely be integration with APIs so we can control some features through API."
"Cloudflare doesn't have a reverse lookup. We can only do a DNS lookup to get the IP address from the hostname. It doesn't work if you want to look up the hostname from an IPA address."
"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."
"The product is expensive."
"The product needs to improve its logs and reports to make it read better."
"The product should give users more flexibility to customize their security policies according to their requirements."
"The time taken to detect anomalies must be reduced."
"Perhaps the time required to detect anomalies can be reduced."
"We end up having to pay extra for features that AWS adds that we don't need."
"Perhaps the time required to detect anomalies can be reduced. Presently, it takes some time to determine whether a situation is normal or abnormal."
"Apart from the price, I feel no other areas need improvement."
"F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager's pricing and technical support services need improvement."
"There should be simplified and better integration with BIG-IQ."
"We needed to protect the database but the solution didn't offer a certain feature to do so."
"For configuring the firewall, every single vendor on the planet has pretty much the same logic when it comes to firewalls, and F5 has a completely different approach and completely different behavior."
"The initial setup of F5 BIG-IP AFM in a complex environment was simple. However, the full deployment took us approximately one year."
"Deployment times vary according to the customer. It needs to be heavily configured. You need to look and you need to observe the behavior of the traffic before you can start configuring everything. It can take time."
"The web gateway feature could improve in F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."
"I give the price a five out of ten."
"A free version of the solution is available."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."
"We don't have any issues with the price."
"The solution is expensive when compared to other products but offers unlimited bandwidth."
"We are using the free tier of the solution."
"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."
"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."
"The tool is cheap."
"The tool's pricing is good."
"F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager is not an expensive solution."
"The price of F5 BIG-IP AFM is a little more expensive than other firewalls on the market."
"F5 BIG-IP AFM is an affordable solution. There were not any additional fees other than the standard licensing."
"It is somewhat on the expensive side although it is worth the additional cost."
"F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) is an expensive solution. They are one of the best in the market, but the price could be cheaper."
"The product is expensive."
"We have purchased a five-year licensing package for the product."
"As per pricing, I would not say cheap, but little higher than cheap, but not very expensive. So you can say kind of value for money solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
16%
Performing Arts
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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.
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 de...
What needs improvement with AWS Shield?
Perhaps the time required to detect anomalies can be reduced. Presently, it takes some time to determine whether a si...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Advanced Firewall Manager?
The standard license is reasonably priced, but additional features like the WAF can be more expensive. There are plen...
What needs improvement with F5 Advanced Firewall Manager?
The appliance and features could be enhanced further, especially in terms of security. Some features like the WAF ( /...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
F5 AFM, F5 Advanced Firewall Manager
 

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.
netflix, dow jones, mapbox, pearson, rovio, youview, moviestar planet, asurion, payplug, hour of code
City Bank, Ricacorp Properties, Miele, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Shield vs. F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.