DDoS protection · October 2026 Edition
Cloudflare vs AWS Shield
Ten of fourteen models named Cloudflare first on the direct prompt; two named AWS Shield. Both were named by all fourteen models and Cloudflare carries 69 labels and AWS Shield 62, so the shares are not directly comparable.
Named in seven categories this edition.
Named in one category this edition.
First-choice share82%4%Of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, 0 to 100.
Negative rate6%11%Negative labels as a share of the product's labels, 0 to 100.
Rank in category#1#2A position in a field of 9; printed, not drawn.
Labels6962A count; the two differ.
The two percentage rows are drawn on one 0 to 100 track, Cloudflare reading right to left. Rank and label count are printed, not drawn.Imperva DDoS Protection was named alongside these two in nine of the fourteen direct answers. Cloudflare vs Imperva DDoS Protection · Cloudflare vs Radware Cloud DDoS Protection · AWS Shield vs Imperva DDoS Protection
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category; every quote names the model and the prompt it came from. Both figures come from the ddos protection page.
By framing
How many of the fourteen models made each the first choice, per way of asking, and how many argued against it.
CloudflareFirst choices, of fourteen modelsAWS Shield
Direct1021 against AWS Shield
Paraphrase130
Comparative130
Budget-constrained1404 against AWS Shield
Scale-constrained00
Negative504 against Cloudflare · 2 against AWS Shield
Bars are first choices, 0 to 14 each sideModels that argued againstA model can name both, so the two sides of a row do not sum to fourteen.
Across every category in the October 2026 Edition, Cloudflare and AWS Shield were named in the same answer 183 times, of the 480 answers naming Cloudflare and the 200 naming AWS Shield. In those answers AWS Shield took the first choice zero times and Cloudflare 155.
Every model, every framing
The eighty-four answers behind the chart above, one cell each: where Cloudflare and AWS Shield stood in it.
| Model | Direct | Paraphrase | Comparative | Budget-constrained | Scale-constrained | Negative |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | | | | | | |
| GPT-5.4 mini | | | | | ||
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | | | | | | |
| Perplexity Sonar | | | | | | |
| Grok 4.1 Fast | | | | | | |
| Mistral Small | | | | | ||
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | | | | | | |
| Llama 4 Maverick | | | ||||
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | | | | | | |
| Kimi K2 | | | | | | |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | | | | | | |
| MiniMax M2.5 | | | | |||
| GPT-6 Luna | | | | | | |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | | | | |
Cloudflare AWS Shield first choice named as an alternative argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, Cloudflare on the left and AWS Shield on the right.The direct prompt
The plain question, one answer per model, grouped by where Cloudflare and AWS Shield stood in it.
Both were the first choice
2 of 14 modelsThe answer named them together, and the judge labeled each a first choice.Mistral SmallAWS Shield, Cloudflare alternatives: Nexusguard, Radware Cloud DDoS Protection
Qwen 3.7 FlashAWS Shield, Cloudflare alternatives: Imperva DDoS Protection, Radware Cloud DDoS Protection
Cloudflare first, AWS Shield an alternative
8 of 14 modelsAWS Shield was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Claude Haiku 4.5Cloudflare alternatives: Imperva DDoS Protection, Radware Cloud DDoS Protection, Vercara
Gemini 3.5 FlashCloudflare alternatives: AWS Shield, Fastly DDoS Protection, Imperva DDoS Protection
Grok 4.1 FastCloudflare alternatives: AWS Shield, Akamai Kona Site Defender, Imperva DDoS Protection, Radware DefensePro
DeepSeek V4 FlashCloudflare alternatives: AWS Shield, Azure DDoS Protection, Imperva DDoS Protection
Kimi K2Cloudflare alternatives: Imperva DDoS Protection
GLM 4.7 FlashXCloudflare alternatives: AWS Shield, Akamai Prolexic
GPT-6 LunaCloudflare alternatives: AWS Shield, Akamai Prolexic, Magic Transit
Muse Glimmer 30BCloudflare, Imperva DDoS Protection, Imperva Incapsula alternatives: Radware Cloud DDoS Protection
Neither was the first choice, one was named
3 of 14 modelsThe answer put something else first and named one of the two as an alternative.GPT-5.4 miniCloudflare Business or Cloudflare Contract alternatives: AWS Shield
Perplexity SonarLevelBlue alternatives: Cloudflare, Imperva DDoS Protection
MiniMax M2.5Cloudflare Magic Transit alternatives: AWS Shield, Imperva DDoS Protection, Radware Cloud DDoS Protection
Neither was named
1 of 14 modelsThe answer made no first choice from these two in this category.Llama 4 Maverickno first choice
Bold names in an answer are the products the judge labeled a first choice; a model naming several gives each of them that label. The full answer text for every row is in the record.
By buyer segment
The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment and they are never added together. The figures above are the mid-market standing, which is the one the category orders by.
Small business
Cloudflare leads by 100 points.
Cloudflare100%#1 of 10AWS Shield0%#2 of 10Mid-marketThe figures above
Cloudflare leads by seventy-eight points.
Cloudflare82%#1 of 9AWS Shield4%#2 of 9Enterprise
Cloudflare leads by fifty-seven points.
Cloudflare57%#1 of 8AWS Shield0%#5 of 8What the models said about Cloudflare
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Three of three in this category shown.
“Cloudflare's lower tiers work well for basic volumetric attacks, but for sophisticated application-layer attacks, you will often need to upgrade to Enterprise or manually tune complex rate-limiting rules.” Claude Haiku 4.5 · negative prompt · soft negative
“Over‑protective bot protection that flags legitimate users... When to be cautious: If your organization cannot tolerate even brief outages” GLM 4.7 FlashX · negative prompt · soft negative
“look for established, globally distributed enterprise security providers (such as Cloudflare, Akamai, Imperva, Radware, AWS Shield, or Google Cloud Armor)” Gemini 3.5 Flash · negative prompt · first choice
What the models said about AWS Shield
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of eight in this category shown.
“A Budget Trap to Avoid ... Costs a flat $3,000/month with a 1-year commitment, plus data transfer fees.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · budget prompt · hard negative
“Options to Avoid on a Limited Budget ... $3,000/month” DeepSeek V4 Flash · budget prompt · hard negative
“AWS Shield Standard protects only when used with AWS edge services like CloudFront and Route 53, and Shield Advanced is needed for stronger cost protection” Perplexity Sonar · negative prompt · soft negative
“Cloudflare and AWS Shield Advanced are the top choices due to their balance of cost, ease of use, and comprehensive protection” Mistral Small · direct prompt · first choice
“If your entire stack is hosted on Amazon Web Services (EC2, Elastic Load Balancing), AWS Shield is the logical choice.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · direct prompt · first choice
“If you're on AWS: AWS Shield Advanced (free Standard tier + paid for advanced). Seamless integration but best if heavily cloud-native.” Grok 4.1 Fast · paraphrase prompt · alternative
Also compared
Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category, each against each. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.