AWS Shield vs Uplynk comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Uplynk are both solutions in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.8, while Uplynk is ranked #16 with an average rating of 8.5. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 2.9% mindshare in DDOS, compared to Uplynk’s 1.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Uplynk users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 15, 2026

Uplynk and AWS Shield both compete in delivering specialized digital services, with Uplynk focusing on media delivery and AWS Shield on cybersecurity. Uplynk's strengths lie in cost-effectiveness and ease of use, whereas AWS Shield stands out in security, making it more appealing for security-focused clients.

Features: Uplynk offers seamless video streaming solutions, adaptive bitrate streaming, and cloud-based storage ideal for content delivery. AWS Shield provides advanced DDoS protection, integration with AWS services, and tailored defense strategies through its advanced tier.

Room for Improvement: Uplynk could improve its security protections to appeal to clients with higher security needs, expand its feature set for broader application use, and offer more advanced analytical tools. AWS Shield might enhance its user interface for easier navigation, reduce deployment complexity for non-AWS users, and lower the cost for accessing advanced features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Uplynk is recognized for its easy deployment process and extensive support resources, making integration user-friendly. In contrast, AWS Shield is deeply integrated with other AWS services, which can complicate deployment but provides robust support crucial for maintaining high-security standards.

Pricing and ROI: Uplynk is competitively priced, appealing to budget-conscious businesses and offering quick ROI due to affordable media solutions. AWS Shield involves higher setup costs due to its premium security features, but the investment can be justified by the significant ROI provided by comprehensive cybersecurity protections, especially for those requiring enhanced threat protection.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Shield vs. Uplynk Report (Updated: June 2026).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Shield vs. Uplynk

June 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 908,800 peers since 2012

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 August 2026, in the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection category, the mindshare of Cloudflare is 12.4%, down from 19.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Shield is 2.9%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Uplynk is 1.9%, up from 1.7% 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	12.4%
AWS Shield	2.9%
Uplynk	1.9%
Other	82.8%

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.

Read full review

Pranav Telang

DGM at Airtel Digital

Has enabled multi-layered threat mitigation but still lacks deeper visibility for advanced application attacks

AWS Shield has limited coverage as it only protects against common and high-volume network and transport layer attacks, such as SYN floods. It does not provide inherent protection against more sophisticated layer 7 attacks such as HTTP floods. In such cases, integration with WAF is necessary, which results in additional costs for customers. To protect layer 7, layer 4, and layer 3, customers must implement both solutions. The service also has difficulties with static detection thresholds, which may not be sensitive enough to detect smaller application-specific attacks. While AWS Shield is a key security service, AWS should enhance their expert support with 24/7 response for complex attacks, which is currently limited.

Read full review

AliKhalil

manager at a non-profit with 501-1,000 employees

Reliable live streaming has increased our continuous viewership and maintained audience trust

Uplynk is deployed in my organization on-premises and is fully on-site. Uplynk supports our business continuity or disaster recovery plans because it's really well protected and it doesn't lag or crash when there's a spike in all areas. Uplynk helps us comply with regulatory requirements in our industry by keeping us live. Uplynk integrates really well with other systems or tools we use. You need a whole team to really run Uplynk because there are so many moving pieces, the code, the app, and other components. My experience with Uplynk's analytics or reporting capabilities is that they are especially helpful to update the teams and our stakeholders. I would describe Uplynk's flexibility or customization options as really easy, really customizable, and it integrates in many areas. Uplynk helps me deliver content to different devices or platforms by allowing us to upload on and stay live on tablets, computers, and televisions. It allows us to stay live to get those viewerships. Uplynk is a software that saves time, but you need a solid team to run Uplynk to ensure viewership and everything is moving because there are many pieces to keep. I advise others looking into using Uplynk that it takes many different areas: coding, integration, APIs, and all that. It takes a team to run it, and you need to be a big company. If you're streaming and doing all that at a big scale, use it. If you're on a smaller scale, Uplynk is going to be really hard for you to manage. It's not something that's simple; just use the ones that are basic out there if you're an influencer and things like that. I would rate this product a nine overall.

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

"New and innovative way to protect the client's data."

"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."

"Generally, I am satisfied with this product."

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

"We're using dynamic components to build flexible pages to create and manage Git merge requests for code and reviews."

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

"The API gives us the ability to remote control our DNS settings."

"Cloudflare improves performance on my websites and is a great partner for cloud infrastructure for anyone who wants to use the security service and other features."

More Cloudflare pros

"The solution operates smoothly at its baseline level, and we do not encounter any issues at that level."

"It is integrated with AWS. So, it gives you a good first step."

"I recommend AWS Shield because it has proven helpful in tracking DDoS attacks within both my past and present environments, and without AWS Shield, a business could face potential losses, as this tool helps in identifying and mitigating fake traffic that disrupts applications, ultimately supporting business continuity."

"If most of your internet presence from your application side is in AWS, AWS Shield is a great option."

"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."

"AWS Shield is aligned with the web application firewall (WAF), and they work seamlessly together, primarily working with Elastic Load Balancer, CloudFront, and Route 53 for CDN and DNS services protection."

"The automatic detection and mitigation of DDoS attacks in the product operates in real-time and provides satisfactory results."

More AWS Shield pros

"The customer support and service responsiveness were excellent."

"I recommend this solution because, for me, it's one of the most efficient and performant CDN operators."

"It's super easy to use and integrate with."

"Without EdgeCast, our website was taking 10 to 15 seconds to load; with EdgeCast, it loads under five seconds and it's a good product."

"The Rules Engine V4 is the most valuable feature."

"The product is easy to use and easy to implement."

"Uplynk has positively impacted our organization by bringing us more viewership, as it does not glitch and stays stable during spikes in viewership, leading to approximately a 15 to 20 percent increase in viewership because there's no lag and nothing fails."

"The tool's most valuable feature is the Uplynk platform for streaming purposes."

Cons

"Cloudflare could offer a better view or maybe dashboards of the main resources used in the client."

"The product support needs to be accessible from more places, a wider area of coverage."

"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."

"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 does not have an on-premise solution. If they had different approaches they could be better suited to accommodate more customers, such as on-premise and hybrid deployments. For example, hybrid deployments would be useful where you could move the traffic from the enterprise to the cloud."

"I rate technical support quite badly."

"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."

"It should have easier documentation for the configuration. It's very technical and people who aren't technical should also be able to do the configuration."

More Cloudflare cons

"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."

"AWS Shield Standard requires improvement, particularly regarding its dashboard since it currently provides limited coverage against comprehensive DDoS attacks."

"AWS Shield has limited coverage as it only protects against common and high-volume network and transport layer attacks, such as SYN floods."

"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 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."

"Perhaps the time required to detect anomalies can be reduced. Presently, it takes some time to determine whether a situation is normal or abnormal."

More AWS Shield cons

"The comparable features that we are looking at fits into Cloudflare's free version, as opposed to Verizon EdgeCast, which we are paying for."

"To improve Uplynk, it should be made more user-friendly, as it takes a lot of moving pieces to make it work."

"In the next release, I would like to see more global endpoints for their CDN and a lower price."

"We could not create more than 15 custom rules."

"The web interface of the Verizon Edgecast portal is very old. It's not user-friendly, slow, and it is missing some valuable features like the ability to make bulk changes."

"The tool needs to resolve its lack of innovation."

"The pricing was initially very expensive."

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"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 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 product's pricing is cheap."

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

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

"The price is reasonable."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"The tool's pricing is good."

"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."

"The tool is cheap."

"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 product is cheaper compared to other solutions."

"When I modeled it out, we are spending somewhere between $600 to $800 a month with Verizon EdgeCast."

"Be careful about the options because to have all the features can be very expensive."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Comms Service Provider

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

17%

Computer Software Company

Construction Company

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

18%

Construction Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Outsourcing Company

10%

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	3
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	7

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	3

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

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Shield?

The pricing structure for AWS Shield is fair, yet it depends on the specific protections chosen. Enabling Shield Adva...

See all answers

What needs improvement with AWS Shield?

Services always benefit from improvements, including AWS Shield. With respect to the Web Application Firewall, curren...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for AWS Shield?

What do you use it for? How do you use it?

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Edgio Global CDN?

I wasn't a part of the pricing, setup cost, and licensing discussions, but from what I heard from my colleagues, they...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Edgio Global CDN?

To improve Uplynk, it should be made more user-friendly, as it takes a lot of moving pieces to make it work. Uplynk i...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Edgio Global CDN?

My main use case for Uplynk is live channels around the clock. Since we're in the television business, we're constant...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 31% 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

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 2% of the time

More Cloudflare Competitors

Akamai App and API Protector vs AWS Shield

Compared 30% of the time

Azure DDoS Protection vs AWS Shield

Compared 9% of the time

Cloudflare One vs AWS Shield

Compared 8% of the time

Radware DDoS vs AWS Shield

Compared 8% of the time

Prolexic vs AWS Shield

Compared 4% of the time

More AWS Shield Competitors

Akamai vs Uplynk

Compared 10% of the time

Qwilt vs Uplynk

Compared 8% of the time

Windows Azure CDN vs Uplynk

Compared 6% of the time

Fastly vs Uplynk

Compared 6% of the time

Vision Solutions Double-Take vs Uplynk

Compared 4% of the time

More Uplynk Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

August 2026

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

AWS Shield

August 2026

Download AWS Shield product report

Buyer's Guide

Uplynk

July 2026

Download Uplynk product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

No data available

Edgio, Limelight Content Delivery, Limelight Orchestrate Delivery, Limelight Origin Storage, Global CDN, Verizon EdgeCast

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

AWS Shield offers robust DDoS protection with seamless integration into AWS services, providing users with enhanced security without impacting performance. Its intuitive dashboard and integration with tools like WAF and CloudWatch make it a go-to for many organizations seeking reliable protection.

AWS Shield provides real-time attack visibility and transparency, excelling in DDoS protection while maintaining application and network layer security. The Advanced tier offers automated threat detection, tailored defense strategies, and a responsive DDoS team. However, challenges include high costs, limited customization, and a need for better traffic insights. Organizations must often rely on additional AWS services for comprehensive network security. The solution is primarily used to protect against DDoS attacks and secure web applications, offering Layer 3 and 4 security. While the Standard tier offers basic security at no cost, the Advanced tier provides enhanced protection against severe attacks such as SYN floods, albeit with a monthly fee.

What are AWS Shield's most important features?

Ease of Use: Simple integration and intuitive monitoring dashboard.
Real-Time Attack Visibility: Immediate insights into attack metrics without performance impact.
Seamless AWS Integration: Works smoothly with WAF and CloudWatch for comprehensive protection.
Advanced Defense Strategies: Customizable strategies with automatic threat detection.

What benefits or ROI should users consider?

Enhanced Security: Robust DDoS mitigation for continuous protection.
Performance Maintenance: Protects services during high-traffic events without degradation.
Comprehensive Monitoring: Intuitive dashboard for easy attack tracking and management.
Cost-Effective Tiered Offerings: The choice between no-cost basic or feature-rich advanced options.

In industries like finance and e-commerce, AWS Shield's capabilities ensure continual uptime and protection against potential DDoS threats, vital during high-traffic periods. Its use in media and entertainment allows secure streaming and content delivery, while health sectors benefit from secure and reliable patient data access and protection.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Uplynk is a robust platform providing CDN integration and optimized streaming services, improving user experience and application performance. It offers control over CDN caching, redirects, and asset transformations, supporting seamless asset management and mobile security.

Uplynk enhances application performance through efficient API calls, optimized web server loads, and robust CDN configurations. It ensures high availability and performance by leveraging Verizon EdgeCast CDN, crucial for managing high-volume traffic on e-commerce platforms. Though Uplynk excels in asset caching and mobile security with JWT tokens and AES encryption, some users note its global reach needs improvement, and its interface lacks modern user-friendliness. Deployment of new rules can be slower compared to competitors, while documentation and rate limiting features require enhancement. Despite this, Uplynk remains a preferred choice for organizations seeking streamlined web server load optimization and enhanced application performance.

What are Uplynk's key features?

Rules Engine V4: Manages CDN caching, redirects, and asset transformations.
Seamless Integration: Easily integrates with Verizon's existing offerings.
Efficient API Calls: Enhances streaming and application performance.
Staging Support: Testing in staging environments without impacting production.
Mobile Security: Includes JWT tokens and AES encryption.

What benefits should users expect in reviews?

Improved Load Times: Efficient CDN configurations enhance site speed.
Enhanced User Navigation: Optimized performance for high-volume traffic.
DDoS Protection: Layer 3, 4, and 7 protection for comprehensive security.
Performance Optimization: Mobile development and streamlined caching.

Organizations deploy Uplynk to optimize web server load, enhance streaming service performance and support high-traffic volume management, especially in e-commerce. Its security measures, combined with Verizon EdgeCast CDN, ensure high availability and reliable performance, enhancing mobile engagement through specialized frameworks.

Uplynk

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

TD Ameritrade, Plus500, Solvay Bank, Yahoo, Deckers Brands, and Coach

Buyer's Guide

AWS Shield vs. Uplynk

June 2026

Free Report: AWS Shield vs. Uplynk

Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Shield vs. Uplynk and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our AWS Shield vs. Uplynk report.

See our list of best Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection vendors.

We monitor all Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.