Comparison

AWS Shield vs Fastly DDoS Protection

No clear leader: AWS Shield (49.6) and Fastly DDoS Protection (45.4) are within the 5-point margin; treat as a tie. The attribute-by-attribute breakdown below, with a source and date on every value, is the honest way to compare them.

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AWS Shield50
Fastly DDoS Protection45
Score
vioscaleAI score
AWS Shield50 / 100medium · 55%
Fastly DDoS Protection45 / 100low · 46%
Pricing
Free tier
AWS Shield✓
Fastly DDoS Protection✓
Model
AWS Shieldfreemium
Fastly DDoS Protectionfreemium
Price level
AWS Shieldlow
Fastly DDoS Protectionlow
Starting price
AWS Shield–
Fastly DDoS Protection$0.04
Transparent
AWS Shield✓
Fastly DDoS Protection✗
Integrations
Count
AWS Shield8
Fastly DDoS Protection–
Security
Disclosure policy
AWS Shield✓
Fastly DDoS Protection–
Fedramp
AWS Shield✓
Fastly DDoS Protection–
Gdpr
AWS Shield✓
Fastly DDoS Protection✓
Hipaa
AWS Shield✓
Fastly DDoS Protection✓
Pci
AWS Shield✓
Fastly DDoS Protection✓
Market
Availability
Content
Faq
AWS Shield6 items
Fastly DDoS Protection6 items

Capabilities

Feature-by-feature on the axes that matter for ddos protection. “-” means undocumented, not absent.

Capabilities
Deployment model
AWS Shield-
Fastly DDoS ProtectionGlobal anycast edge
Always on mitigation
AWS Shield✓
Fastly DDoS Protection✓
On demand bgp diversion
AWS Shield-
Fastly DDoS Protection-
Layer 3 4 volumetric protection
AWS Shield✓
Fastly DDoS Protection✓
Layer 7 application protection
AWS Shield✓
Fastly DDoS Protection✓
DNS amplification protection
AWS Shield-
Fastly DDoS Protection-
Unmetered attack bandwidth
AWS Shield-
Fastly DDoS Protection✓
Sub second mitigation SLA
AWS Shield-
Fastly DDoS Protection-
Bundled WAF
AWS Shield✓
Fastly DDoS Protection✗
SIEM log export API
AWS Shield-
Fastly DDoS Protection-
SOC2 type ii
AWS Shield-
Fastly DDoS Protection-
PCI DSS compliant
AWS Shield✓
Fastly DDoS Protection-
Pricing model
AWS ShieldFreemium
Fastly DDoS ProtectionFreemium

What each one is

The product in its own terms, so the numbers below have context.

AWS Shield

A managed DDoS protection service that provides automatic, real-time defense against distributed denial-of-service attacks. Offers a free standard tier for basic infrastructure protection and a premium tier with advanced threat detection, application-layer defense, and expert incident response.

Independently observed

Fastly DDoS Protection

An edge-based system that automatically detects and blocks distributed attacks in seconds, keeping applications available for any size infrastructure without requiring specialized security expertise.

Independently observed

Pricing

List pricing as published by each vendor, with the date we read it. Always verify at the source before you buy.

AWS Shield

HybridFree tier

Free tier included with AWS account; Advanced tier available (pricing not specified in documentation)

  • AWS Shield StandardFree
    • Protection against common network and transport layer DDoS attacks
    • Deterministic packet filtering
    • Priority-based traffic shaping
    • Works with CloudFront and Route 53
  • AWS Shield Advanced-
    • Automatic mitigation of sophisticated DDoS events
    • Customized detection based on traffic patterns
    • Application-layer attack detection (HTTP floods, DNS query floods)
    • Real-time notifications via CloudWatch
    • 24/7 Shield Response Team support
    • +2 more
as of verify ↗

Fastly DDoS Protection

HybridFree tier

Free tier with usage-based pricing; custom pricing for Enterprise

  • FreeFree
  • Growth-
  • EnterpriseContact sales
as of verify ↗

Platform & deployment

Where each product runs and how it can be hosted. A dash means undocumented, not unsupported.

Platforms
Web
AWS Shield✓
Fastly DDoS Protection✓
Deployment
Cloud / SaaS
AWS Shield✓
Fastly DDoS Protection✓
On-premise
AWS Shield✗
Fastly DDoS Protection✓
Hybrid
AWS Shield✗
Fastly DDoS Protection✓

Integrations

What each product connects to. Counts come from the vendor's own integration directory where one exists.

AWS Shield

9 total
  • AWS WAF
  • Amazon CloudFront
  • Amazon Route 53
  • Elastic IP
  • Elastic Load Balancing
  • AWS Global Accelerator
  • Amazon CloudWatch
  • AWS Firewall Manager
  • Amazon EC2
Independently observed

Fastly DDoS Protection

Not documented yet.

Still deciding?

AWS Shield or Fastly DDoS Protection: which one depends on you

A composite score cannot know your constraints. Describe them and both get re-weighted against what you actually need, with the evidence behind every position.

Free to run, no account needed to start. How the evaluation works

Comparison generated from independently-sourced facts. Every value links to its source and retrieval date. See the method.