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AWS Shield vs Imperva Application Security Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 17, 2025

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
Imperva Application Securit...
Ranking in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
133
Ranking in other categories
CDN (4th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (4th), Bot Management (2nd), API Security (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 18.8%, up from 17.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Shield is 5.6%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Imperva Application Security Platform is 7.3%, down from 8.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cloudflare18.8%
Imperva's Application Security Platform7.3%
AWS Shield5.6%
Other68.3%
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.
Bhupesh-Sharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced network security with effective threat filtering and good bot managing features
We use Imperva DDoS protection to safeguard our network from multiple attacks. It is especially useful to protect websites or applications by redirecting traffic to eliminate threats Imperva DDoS increases our uptime to 99.99% by filtering and managing traffic to ensure only genuine traffic…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"New and innovative way to protect the client's data."
"Cloudflare has many features."
"Cloudflare DNS is widely used, and it's good for websites. If we use Cloudflare DNS and update one record, it updates in their office instantly."
"From what I've seen so far, there are no negatives to report as of yet"
"What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering, so it's a valuable tool."
"The solution is very good at mitigating threats."
"The overall experience with Cloudflare is positive, with a rating of eight out of ten."
"I am impressed with the product's multiple features like security."
"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."
"The solution operates smoothly at its baseline level, and we do not encounter any issues at that level."
"The product has a good mechanism to analyze trends and trigger events."
"It is quite scalable, and we have not faced any issues with its scalability."
"The solution's ease of use is the most valuable feature."
"The product is easy to use."
"It is integrated with AWS. So, it gives you a good first step."
"I have had a positive experience with Imperva Web Application Firewall's tech support so far. They are knowledgeable and respond on time."
"It works right out of the box once you integrate the application."
"It is an effective threat mitigation tool."
"The solution's most valuable aspect is that it is easy to configure."
"There are many features. There is ease of deployment. You can deploy the Imperva Web Application Firewall in two to three minutes. After that, you have to set the policies. For setting policies, you have toggle buttons. You can turn something on or off."
"The bot management features are very effective, as they help filter unwanted traffic using keywords."
"The solution is very good at intercepting traffic before it gets to our data centers."
"The technical support is excellent."
 

Cons

"One area of improvement is in the Access Rules. Hypothetically, if we wanted to block or challenge traffic outside of the United States, the only way to currently do that (as far as I know) is to enter every single country outside of the United States. That could be a labor intensive job. A solution could be to enable users to create a rule where traffic is only allowed within a certain country."
"Technical support is not well developed. While there are good engineers, Cloudflare does not offer hands-on technical support to fix customer problems but rather a self-service model."
"Latencies are always a problem."
"DNS Management."
"Areas like how assessment, discovery, and payload are dealt with and how it all comes into your organization can be considered when trying to make suggestions to Cloudflare for improvements."
"Cloudflare should add more documentation and pricing to the cloud version."
"The solution could be more user-friendly."
"Although I think it's quite good, it doesn't provide me with all the features I would expect to have if I were using Imperva."
"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 needs to improve its logs and reports to make it read better."
"We end up having to pay extra for features that AWS adds that we don't need."
"The product should give users more flexibility to customize their security policies according to their requirements."
"The product is expensive."
"The time taken to detect anomalies must be reduced."
"Perhaps the time required to detect anomalies can be reduced. Presently, it takes some time to determine whether a situation is normal or abnormal."
"Perhaps the time required to detect anomalies can be reduced."
"Imperva DDoS does not provide version control."
"I am looking for more data enrichment. We should have the ability to add our own custom data to the system, to the live traffic."
"I don't really use it and therefore can't speak to areas of improvement."
"The UI interface needs improvement."
"It is complicated to integrate the solution's on-cloud version with other platforms."
"The tool's UI is complicated. It would be best to have a more accessible UI dashboard to make the job easier."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall is very expensive."
"Incapsula services also provides load balancing services for their service IP address environment. So far, with monitoring their services, the IP address was only changed once."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is reasonable."
"A free version of the solution is available."
"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."
"We don't have any issues with the price."
"We are using the free version."
"So far I use free tier and happy with it. You can subscribe to business package if needed."
"I think the pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."
"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."
"The cost depends on traffic each month, so on average, it costs us between US$200 and US$300 per month."
"We pay $3000 per month for the solution."
"The tool's pricing is good."
"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 is expensive."
"We sell three-year licenses for Imperva Web Application Firewall to our customers. The price is a little expensive."
"Imperva Web Application Firewall's pricing is expensive."
"The price of Imperva Web Application Firewalls is expensive compared to others."
"It is expensive."
"I rate the product price a four on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"​Although the pricing can be a little high, it is worth the protection and security that it offers.​"
"It is a very expensive solution. The price is very high. A lot of customers tell us that they would love to use Imperva more. I have some customers who have 50 websites, but they have only 10 websites on Imperva because of the price. They would love to have all their websites running through Imperva, but they can't. They have to choose the more critical websites to protect because the price is very high. It is a very good product, but it is too expensive. If you buy a plan for 20 megabytes and you don't consume all of your 20 megabytes, it is okay, but if you consume more, you are charged for the superior traffic."
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Comparison Review

it_user68487 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 6, 2013
CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Web Application Firewall
CloudFlare vs Incapsula: Round 2 Web Application Firewall Comparative Penetration Testing Analysis Report v1.0 Summary This document contains the results of a second comparative penetration test conducted by a team of security specialists at Zero Science Lab against two cloud-based Web…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business83
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise61
 

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...
Which Web Application Firewall (WAF) would you recommend? R&S or Imperva?
Imperva is a strong choice, given their security focus and ongoing R&D into the product in areas such as bot mana...
What do you like most about Imperva Incapsula?
We use Imperva DDoS to stop DDoS attacks and reduce the amount of unwanted queries against web services or web scraping.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Imperva DDoS?
The pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Imperva DDoS are reasonable for the amount of technical capabilities provi...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS
No data available
Imperva Bot Management, Imperva Web Application Firewall, Imperva API 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.
netflix, dow jones, mapbox, pearson, rovio, youview, moviestar planet, asurion, payplug, hour of code
Hitachi, BNZ, Bitstamp, Moz, InnoGames, BTCChina, Wix, LivePerson, Zillow and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Shield vs. Imperva Application Security Platform and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.