Compare DDoS protection services across AWS Shield, Azure DDoS Protection, Cloud Armor, and OCI.
Showing 20 of 20 features.
| Feature | AWS | Azure | GCP | OCI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Service Name Core Features | AWS Shield (Standard + Advanced) | Azure DDoS Protection (Network + IP) | Google Cloud Armor DDoS Protection | OCI DDoS Protection (always-on) |
Free Tier Core Features | Shield Standard: free, automatic L3/L4 protection for all AWS resources | Basic: free infrastructure-level protection for all Azure resources | Standard: always-on L3/L4 protection for all GCP load-balanced resources | Always-on DDoS protection included at no extra charge |
Premium Tier Core Features | Shield Advanced: $3,000/month + data transfer; L3-L7 with SRT access | DDoS Network Protection: ~$2,944/month per 100 resources | Cloud Armor Enterprise: pay per policy/rule + advanced features | No separate premium tier; DDoS protection included in infrastructure |
SLA / Guarantee Core Features | Shield Advanced: cost protection (credits for scaling charges during attacks) | DDoS Network Protection: cost protection credit for attack-induced scaling | Cloud Armor Enterprise: includes DDoS cost protection | Platform SLA covers availability; no separate DDoS SLA |
Protected Resources Core Features | EC2, ELB, CloudFront, Global Accelerator, Route 53, Elastic IP | Virtual Networks, Public IPs, Load Balancers, Application Gateways | HTTP/S Load Balancer, TCP/SSL Proxy, CDN, Cloud Run, GKE | All public-facing OCI resources (load balancers, compute, edge) |
L3/L4 Protection Protection Layers | Always-on flow-based detection; automatic inline mitigation | Always-on traffic monitoring with automatic mitigation | Always-on volumetric protection at Google edge PoPs | Always-on L3/L4 scrubbing at Oracle backbone edge |
L7 Protection Protection Layers | Shield Advanced + AWS WAF integration for application-layer attacks | DDoS Protection + Azure WAF on Application Gateway/Front Door | Cloud Armor WAF rules + Adaptive Protection ML-based detection | WAF integration for HTTP flood and application-layer attacks |
Volumetric Attack Capacity Protection Layers | Multi-Tbps scrubbing via AWS global edge network | Multi-Tbps mitigation capacity via Azure backbone | Multi-Tbps absorption via Google global network (2.5 Tbps+ proven) | Tbps-scale scrubbing via Oracle backbone network |
Protocol Attack Defense Protection Layers | SYN flood, UDP reflection, DNS amplification auto-mitigated | SYN/ACK floods, UDP/DNS amplification, fragmentation attacks | SYN flood, UDP reflection, NTP/DNS amplification at edge | SYN flood, UDP reflection, ICMP floods, fragmented attacks |
Adaptive / ML Detection Protection Layers | Shield Advanced: anomaly detection based on traffic baselines | ML-based profiling and adaptive tuning of mitigation policies | Adaptive Protection: ML models detect and suggest rules for L7 attacks | Traffic analysis with automatic threshold adjustment |
Response Team Response & Mitigation | Shield Response Team (SRT) for 24/7 expert assistance (Advanced) | DDoS Rapid Response (DRR) team engagement (Network Protection) | Google Cloud support team; no dedicated DDoS response team | OCI support; no dedicated DDoS response team |
Time to Mitigate Response & Mitigation | L3/L4: seconds; L7 with WAF: seconds to minutes | L3/L4: typically under 1 minute; adaptive tuning ongoing | L3/L4: seconds at edge; L7 Adaptive Protection: seconds | L3/L4: seconds; L7 via WAF: seconds to minutes |
Attack Visibility Response & Mitigation | Shield Advanced: real-time attack metrics, CloudWatch, SNS notifications | DDoS attack analytics, metrics, alerts in Azure Monitor | Cloud Armor telemetry, Security Command Center integration | OCI Monitoring metrics and Events service for attack alerts |
Post-Attack Reporting Response & Mitigation | Shield Advanced: attack diagnostics, summary reports in console | DDoS attack flow logs; Diagnostic Insights reports | Cloud Logging attack logs; Security Command Center findings | OCI Audit logs and monitoring metric history |
Custom Mitigation Rules Response & Mitigation | WAF rate rules, geo blocks, IP deny lists during attacks | WAF custom rules, rate limiting, geo filtering | Cloud Armor custom rules, rate limiting, adaptive suggestions | WAF rules, CAPTCHA challenges, rate limiting |
Monitoring & Alerting Operations | CloudWatch metrics: DDoSDetected, DDoSAttackBitsPerSecond, etc. | Azure Monitor: under DDoS attack, inbound packets dropped/forwarded | Cloud Monitoring: requests by outcome, policy evaluations | OCI Monitoring: traffic volume, blocked requests, alerts |
Integration with CDN Operations | CloudFront native Shield integration for edge DDoS protection | Front Door WAF with built-in DDoS; CDN classic support | Cloud CDN + Cloud Armor integrated at Google edge | OCI CDN with edge-level DDoS scrubbing |
Terraform Support Operations | aws_shield_protection, aws_shield_subscription resources | azurerm_network_ddos_protection_plan resource | google_compute_security_policy with advanced_options_config | Included by default; WAF policies via oci_waf_* resources |
Global vs Regional Operations | Shield Standard: global (CloudFront/R53); Advanced: regional + global | DDoS Protection plan applied per VNet (regional scope) | Global protection at all Google edge PoPs | Regional DDoS scrubbing at Oracle backbone entry points |
Multi-Account Coverage Operations | Shield Advanced: AWS Organizations consolidated billing discount; Firewall Manager | DDoS Protection plan shared across VNets in subscription | Organization-level security policies via hierarchical policies | Tenancy-wide protection across all compartments |
The comparison table is a static, hand-maintained dataset of feature rows tagged by category (Core Features, Protection Layers, Response & Mitigation, Operations); filtering and search narrow the visible rows without any live pricing or API lookup, verify current pricing directly with each provider before a budget decision since DDoS protection pricing tiers change periodically.
A comparison of AWS Shield, Azure DDoS Protection, Cloud Armor DDoS protection, and OCI's always-on DDoS protection, covering the meaningful gap between each provider's free always-on L3/L4 tier and its paid premium tier's cost-protection guarantee. Shield Advanced runs roughly $3,000/month plus data transfer and includes SRT (Shield Response Team) access and cost protection credits for attack-induced autoscaling; Azure's equivalent DDoS Network Protection tier runs near $2,944/month per 100 protected resources, while OCI includes always-on protection with no separate premium tier or extra charge at all.
The free/standard tier being 'always-on' across all four providers doesn't mean equal detection speed or mitigation capacity, providers publish multi-Tbps absorption capacity figures, but the practical mitigation time for a specific attack pattern can still vary and is worth testing rather than assuming from the published headline number.
Shield Advanced and Azure's premium DDoS tier both charge per protected resource or resource group, protecting every resource in a large account rather than scoping to genuinely internet-facing, attack-relevant resources can turn into a surprisingly large monthly bill for coverage that's mostly redundant.
L7 protection needs to be explicitly layered on with a WAF on every one of these providers, teams sometimes assume paying for the premium DDoS tier alone covers application-layer attacks, and it doesn't without the WAF integration turned on.
Generally no, the free/standard tiers across all four providers focus on L3/L4 (network and transport layer) volumetric and protocol attacks. L7 protection against things like HTTP floods typically requires pairing DDoS protection with a WAF (AWS Shield Advanced + AWS WAF, Cloud Armor + Adaptive Protection, Azure DDoS + Azure WAF), it's not included in the base always-on tier on any of the four.
Not exactly, OCI's always-on protection is included at no extra charge and covers the same fundamental volumetric/protocol attack categories, but it doesn't carry the same named cost-protection guarantee or dedicated incident-response team access (like AWS's SRT) that the paid premium tiers on AWS and Azure explicitly include. For most workloads OCI's baseline is solid, but teams relying specifically on the guaranteed cost-protection credit or expert response team should check what OCI's support tier actually includes.
Shield Standard's free tier gives every AWS resource always-on L3/L4 detection and automatic inline mitigation, which covers the vast majority of DDoS attacks by volume. Shield Advanced adds L7 protection integration, a cost-protection guarantee (credits if an attack causes autoscaling charges), enhanced attack diagnostics, and direct access to AWS's Shield Response Team, it's a meaningful step up for a business where DDoS-induced downtime or cost has a large, quantifiable dollar impact, not a requirement for baseline protection.
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