# Cloudflare vs Radware Cloud DDoS Protection: which do AI models recommend for ddos, October 2026

IT AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition, DDoS protection. Ten of fourteen models named Cloudflare first on the direct prompt; zero named Radware Cloud DDoS Protection. Page: https://it-ai-index.com/network/ddos-protection/cloudflare-vs-radware-cloud-ddos-protection/

| | First-choice share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels | Models naming it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare | 82% | #1 of 9 | 6% | 69 | 14 of 14 |
| Radware Cloud DDoS Protection | 2% | #4 of 9 | 6% | 33 | 14 of 14 |

## The direct prompt, model by model

- Claude Haiku 4.5: cloudflare first (first choices: Cloudflare) (alternatives: Imperva DDoS Protection, Radware Cloud DDoS Protection, Vercara)
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: cloudflare first (first choices: Cloudflare) (alternatives: AWS Shield, Fastly DDoS Protection, Imperva DDoS Protection)
- Grok 4.1 Fast: cloudflare first (first choices: Cloudflare) (alternatives: AWS Shield, Akamai Kona Site Defender, Imperva DDoS Protection, Radware DefensePro)
- Mistral Small: cloudflare first (first choices: AWS Shield, Cloudflare) (alternatives: Nexusguard, Radware Cloud DDoS Protection)
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: cloudflare first (first choices: Cloudflare) (alternatives: AWS Shield, Azure DDoS Protection, Imperva DDoS Protection)
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: cloudflare first (first choices: AWS Shield, Cloudflare) (alternatives: Imperva DDoS Protection, Radware Cloud DDoS Protection)
- Kimi K2: cloudflare first (first choices: Cloudflare) (alternatives: Imperva DDoS Protection)
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: cloudflare first (first choices: Cloudflare) (alternatives: AWS Shield, Akamai Prolexic)
- GPT-6 Luna: cloudflare first (first choices: Cloudflare) (alternatives: AWS Shield, Akamai Prolexic, Magic Transit)
- Muse Glimmer 30B: cloudflare first (first choices: Cloudflare, Imperva DDoS Protection, Imperva Incapsula) (alternatives: Radware Cloud DDoS Protection)
- Perplexity Sonar: neither first, one named (first choices: LevelBlue) (alternatives: Cloudflare, Imperva DDoS Protection)
- MiniMax M2.5: neither first, one named (first choices: Cloudflare Magic Transit) (alternatives: AWS Shield, Imperva DDoS Protection, Radware Cloud DDoS Protection)
- GPT-5.4 mini: neither named (first choices: Cloudflare Business or Cloudflare Contract) (alternatives: AWS Shield)
- Llama 4 Maverick: neither named

## What the models said about Cloudflare

- "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 Radware Cloud DDoS Protection

- "Middle-tier pricing but still steep for SMBs" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, budget prompt, hard negative)
- "typically less budget-friendly" (GPT-5.4 mini, budget prompt, soft negative)
- "Cloudflare and Radware are frequently mentioned as top choices due to their comprehensive services and scalability" (Llama 4 Maverick, paraphrase prompt, first choice)
- "Radware is highlighted for hybrid precision, sub-second inline mitigation... but it may require more tuning and expertise." (Perplexity Sonar, paraphrase prompt, alternative)
- "Radware offers advanced behavioral detection and hybrid deployment, suitable for organizations with complex architectures." (GLM 4.7 FlashX, comparative prompt, alternative)

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. Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category. Published under CC BY 4.0; the output is the models' output, and nothing here is a recommendation by the index.