Quick comparison table
All five major cloud DDoS protection services side by side. Scroll right on mobile.
| Feature | Cloudflare Free / Pro / Biz |
AWS Shield Standard / Advanced |
Akamai Prolexic Enterprise |
Azure DDoS Network Protection |
Google Cloud Armor Std / Plus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free / $20 / $200 | Free / $3,000/mo | ~$5,000–10,000+/mo | ~$2,944/mo per plan | $5/policy + $1/M req / $3,000/mo |
| HTTP/S protection | Yes — all tiers | Yes — all tiers | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Non-HTTP protocols | Enterprise only (Magic Transit / Spectrum) |
Yes — Advanced tier | Yes — all protocols | Yes — L3/L4 | Limited (Cloud LB only) |
| Any infrastructure | Via proxy / Magic Transit | AWS only | Yes — any cloud/DC | Azure only | GCP only |
| Scrubbing capacity | 100+ Tbps (shared CDN) | AWS edge network | 20+ Tbps (dedicated) | Azure global network | Google global network |
| Detection / mitigation SLA | Seconds (volumetric) | Seconds (automatic) | ~5 min SLA | Seconds (automatic) | Seconds (automatic) |
| Dedicated SOC / DRT | Enterprise only | Advanced — DRT access | Yes — 24/7 SOC | Network Protection only | Plus tier only |
| Attack analytics / PCAP | Business+ | Advanced only | Yes — full forensics | Yes | Plus tier |
| WAF included | Pro+ (managed rules) | Advanced (AWS WAF) | Yes | Separate product | Yes |
| DDoS cost protection | Yes (unmetered) | Advanced only | Yes | Yes | Plus tier only |
| BGP required | No (DNS proxy) Yes for Magic Transit |
No | Yes (own ASN preferred) | No | No |
| Best for | Web apps, SaaS, SMBs | AWS workloads | Enterprise, telecom, any infra | Azure-heavy orgs | GCP workloads |
Cloudflare
Cloudflare DDoS Protection
DNS-proxy CDN with 100+ Tbps scrubbing capacity across 310+ cities globally. Unmetered DDoS mitigation on all tiers.
Unmetered HTTP/S DDoS protection. Basic analytics. Limited WAF.
Managed WAF rulesets, advanced analytics, faster propagation.
Custom WAF rules, detailed attack logs, 99.99% SLA.
Magic Transit (network-layer BGP), Spectrum (non-HTTP), dedicated support.
Strengths
- Free tier provides genuine, unmetered HTTP/S DDoS protection
- Easiest setup — DNS change only, no BGP required
- 100+ Tbps aggregate scrubbing capacity
- Application-layer (L7) attack protection including slowloris, HTTP floods
- Browser integrity check and JS challenge to block bots
- 310+ global PoPs minimize latency impact
Limitations
- Free–Business tiers only protect HTTP/HTTPS (ports 80/443)
- Non-HTTP protocols require Spectrum or Magic Transit — both Enterprise-only
- Magic Transit requires owning a /24 prefix and BGP peering
- No server-side visibility: Cloudflare sees attack traffic, not your server's response
- Limited attack forensics on lower tiers
AWS Shield
AWS Shield
Native DDoS protection for AWS infrastructure. Standard is free and automatic. Advanced adds dedicated response, cost protection, and health-based detection.
Automatic L3/L4 protection for all AWS resources. Protects CloudFront, Route 53, ELB.
12-month commitment. Covers unlimited resources. DRT access, attack cost protection, near-real-time metrics, AWS WAF at no extra cost.
Strengths
- Standard tier is free and always on for all AWS accounts
- Advanced: DDoS cost protection (AWS credits for scaling costs caused by attacks)
- Deep integration with CloudFront, ALB, Global Accelerator, Route 53
- DRT (DDoS Response Team) access for hands-on incident assistance
- Health-based detection monitors application metrics, not just traffic volume
- AWS WAF included at no extra cost with Advanced
Limitations
- Only protects AWS-hosted resources — no protection for on-premise or other clouds
- $3,000/mo minimum puts Advanced out of reach for most small organizations
- Standard detection is limited compared to dedicated solutions
- Configuration complexity for non-web services
- No protection if you're not using AWS-managed front-ends (CloudFront, ALB, etc.)
Akamai Prolexic
Akamai Prolexic
Enterprise-grade BGP-based scrubbing platform. 20+ Tbps dedicated scrubbing capacity across 36 global scrubbing centers. Protocol-agnostic — protects any infrastructure.
Traffic always passes through Prolexic scrubbing centers. Instant mitigation. Highest protection.
Traffic diverted via BGP only during attacks. Lower baseline cost, ~5 min mitigation SLA.
Strengths
- Protocol-agnostic: protects HTTP, UDP, TCP, GRE, any IP protocol
- Works for any infrastructure — on-premise, colo, any cloud provider
- 20+ Tbps dedicated scrubbing hardware (not shared CDN)
- 36 global scrubbing centers with 24/7 SOC staffed by dedicated analysts
- Detailed attack forensics and PCAP-level evidence available from SOC
- Proven track record against largest recorded volumetric attacks
Limitations
- Most expensive option — minimum ~$5,000/month, typically $10,000–30,000+/month for enterprise
- BGP peering required (own ASN and a /24 or larger prefix strongly preferred)
- On-demand mode has ~5-minute mitigation SLA (not instant)
- Complex onboarding — weeks to set up BGP sessions, prefix validation, scrubbing policies
- Overkill for small and medium businesses
Azure DDoS Protection
Azure DDoS Protection
Microsoft's DDoS protection for Azure-hosted resources. Standard tier (now called "Network Protection") covers up to 100 public IPs per DDoS plan.
Automatic protection against common L3/L4 attacks. Limited analytics. No SLA.
Per DDoS plan. Covers up to 100 public IPs. Adaptive tuning, attack analytics, cost guarantees, DRR team access.
The per-plan pricing model makes Azure DDoS Protection relatively cost-effective for organizations running many public-facing resources. If you need to protect 20+ public IPs, the ~$2,944/month plan is cheaper than per-resource alternatives.
Strengths
- Adaptive tuning learns normal traffic patterns and automatically adjusts thresholds
- Cost protection: Azure credits for compute/bandwidth costs caused by DDoS
- Covers up to 100 public IPs per plan — good value at scale
- Microsoft DRR (DDoS Rapid Response) team access
- Attack analytics, metrics, and alerts in Azure Monitor
- Tight integration with Azure Firewall, Application Gateway, Front Door
Limitations
- Only protects Azure-hosted resources
- ~$2,944/month is expensive if protecting only a few public IPs
- L7 protection requires Azure Web Application Firewall (separate product/cost)
- No protection for non-Azure infrastructure
Google Cloud Armor
Google Cloud Armor
DDoS protection and WAF for resources behind Google Cloud Load Balancing. Most affordable entry point for enterprise-level DDoS protection.
+ $1/million requests for WAF rules. Automatic L3/L4 DDoS protection. Custom WAF rules.
Adaptive protection (ML-based), DDoS response support, pre-configured WAF rules, rule tuning assistance.
Strengths
- Most affordable WAF + DDoS combination for GCP workloads
- Adaptive Protection uses ML to detect and generate rules against novel application-layer attacks
- Standard tier protects against volumetric attacks at no per-attack cost
- Pre-configured rule sets for common threats (SQLi, XSS, OWASP Top 10)
- Integrates with Cloud CDN and global load balancing for low-latency protection
Limitations
- Only protects GCP resources behind Cloud Load Balancing
- Limited L4 protocol support compared to Akamai or AWS Shield
- No server-side or per-node visibility
- $3,000/month Plus tier is expensive for purely the adaptive protection features
Best cloud DDoS protection by use case
Cloudflare Free or Pro
Zero-configuration unmetered HTTP/S DDoS protection. Pair with Flowtriq ($9.99/node/month) for server-side detection across all protocols.
Akamai Prolexic
Protocol-agnostic, any infrastructure, dedicated scrubbing hardware, 24/7 SOC. The benchmark for high-value targets requiring guaranteed mitigation SLAs.
AWS Shield Advanced
Deep EC2/CloudFront/ALB integration, cost protection, DRT access. Standard tier is free for all AWS users.
Azure DDoS Network Protection
Adaptive tuning, cost protection, covers up to 100 public IPs. Best value when protecting many Azure resources.
Google Cloud Armor Standard
Low-cost entry point with adaptive ML-based protection. Excellent WAF included. Best starting point for any GCP deployment.
Cloudflare Magic Transit + Flowtriq
Magic Transit protects non-HTTP protocols at the BGP level. Flowtriq adds per-server UDP/TCP detection and PCAP forensics that cloud services can't provide.
The detection gap all cloud services share
Cloud DDoS protection services are primarily mitigation tools. They absorb and filter attack traffic at the edge. But all five services share critical blind spots:
- They only see traffic that passes through them. Services not behind the cloud proxy are unprotected and unmonitored. For AWS Shield, that means on-premise servers. For Cloudflare, that means any service not using Cloudflare as a proxy.
- They do not see your server's reaction. An attack that is successfully mitigated at the edge can still cause elevated CPU load, connection queue saturation, or database contention at the origin. Cloud services don't see this.
- Detection granularity is coarse. Cloud DDoS services report attacks in aggregate — "a 50 Gbps attack was mitigated." They typically don't provide per-second PPS data, protocol-level breakdown, or packet-level evidence.
- Non-HTTP services are often left unprotected. Free and mid-tier plans from Cloudflare, Google Cloud Armor Standard, and AWS Shield Standard all focus on HTTP. Game servers, VoIP, DNS, and custom TCP/UDP services need separate protection.
Cloud DDoS protection and server-side detection are complementary, not competing. Cloud services mitigate attacks at the edge. Flowtriq detects attacks from your server's perspective — catching what gets through, monitoring unprotected services, and providing per-second packet-level forensics that cloud dashboards don't offer.
Recommended layered stack: Cloudflare Free/Pro for HTTP/HTTPS edge protection + Flowtriq ($9.99/node/month) for per-second server-side detection across all protocols and PCAP forensics. Total: under $30/month for complete coverage. For non-HTTP traffic on Cloudflare, add Magic Transit (Enterprise) or use Flowtriq's cloud scrubbing integrations with OVH, Path.net, or Voxility.