DDoS or Distributed Denial of Service attacks are a big challenge faced by most online businesses. A DDoS attack simply disables a website or application by overloading it with requests.
A website that receives 1,000 requests per day on average, might suddenly find itself trying to handle 500,000+ requests every second. Some attacks even go into the millions of requests per second. Worldwide, there were over 10 million estimated DDoS attacks in 2022, with businesses risking losses of $100,000+ for each hour under attack.
DDoS protection systems work by analyzing web traffic to detect abnormalities and take respective actions. This post explores the 10 best DDoS protection platforms and includes tips and tricks to help you get maximum security for your business website or other investments.
DDoS Protection Choosing Tips
Choosing the right DDoS protection platform can be a difficult affair, as there are many issues to consider.
- Identify Your Needs: Are you looking to protect a single application, a website, or a network of connected services? Know your needs first and decide on the most comprehensive protection to seek.
- Consider Scalability: All DDoS attacks are not equal, some are bigger than the rest, while others are massive. Ensure that your chosen platform has the network capacity to automatically scale and meet the size and complexity of possible attacks.
- Analyze Cost Vs Value: This one depends on your situation and individual needs. You need to analyze the DDoS protection platform prices and the coverage they offer to make sure that they are worth it for you or your business.
- Customer Support: You want customer service that is fully available during an attack. So, make sure to check the quality of the platform’s support system before signing up.
Best DDoS Protection Platforms
| Rank | Name | Highlights | Location | Pricing | Website |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Cloudflare | Popular, CDN, edge | Cloud | Freemium | cloudflare.com |
| 2. | AppTrana | Scanning, remediation | Cloud | $99/m | indusface.com |
| 3. | AWS Shield | Customized, always on | Cloud | Freemium | aws.amazon |
| 4. | Sucuri | Malware removals | Cloud | $9.99/m | sucuri.net |
| 5. | Akamai | Enterprise solutions | Hybrid | Varies | akamai.com |
| 6. | Google Cloud Armor | Google Cloud solution | Cloud | PAYG | cloud.google.com |
| 7. | Link11 | Fast AI-based solution | Cloud | Varies | link11.com |
| 8. | Imperva | Comprehensive features | Cloud | Varies | imperva.com |
| 9. | Edge Next | Tailored solutions | Cloud/Edge | By request | edgenext.com |
| 10. | Azure | Azure client’s solution | Cloud | PAYG | azure.microsoft.com |
| FAQs |
1. Cloudflare
Best For: All business sizes
Features:
- Robust DDoS protection for all websites
- The content delivery network is included
- Customizable web application firewall rules
- Load balancing and traffic analysis
Deployment: Cloud
Price: Freemium, from $20 per month
Free Trial: By request
Cloudflare is a cloud-based content delivery network with edge-hosting services that offers DDoS protection using a freemium model. The network processes over 46 million HTTP requests per second, with 30% of the Fortune 1000 companies relying on their service.
Hobby users and non-business critical applications can use the system’s free tier and profit from its many services. You get free DNS, unmetered DDoS protection, CDN, a universal SSL certificate, and a web application firewall.
The Pro plan costs $20 per month, while the Business plan costs $200. Each includes more features – such as image optimization, accelerated mobile pages, and up to 20-page rules on the Pro plan, while the Free plan includes only 3 page rules. Also, Cloudflare’s Free plan can only handle simple bots, while the Pro plan can manage more advanced bots, and so on.
In addition to its standard plans, Cloudflare further offers additional CDN features at extra cost. These include load balancing, smart routing, caching, and more.
2. AppTrana
Best For: Security scanning & remediation, real-time alerts
Features:
- Unlimited DDoS and bot protection
- Web application firewall to filter and monitor traffic
- Real-time threat monitoring and alerts
- Vulnerability assessment and automated remediation
Deployment: Cloud
Price: From $99 per month
Free Trial: 14 days
AppTrana is a comprehensive security solution that offers a range of features to protect your web applications from diverse threats. It includes a web application firewall, a managed CDN, unmetered DDoS mitigation, bot protection, minimal downtime, and a zero false-positive promise.
The AppTrana platform utilizes AI learning techniques to deliver a quality threat detection system. It offers real-time alerts, vulnerability detection and instant patches, API security, and 24×7 customer support.
Over 5,000 customers in 95 countries trust AppTrana. Plans start from $99 per month and app for the Advance plan with 2 custom rules, while the Premium plan costs $399 per month with unlimited rules and many more extras.
3. AWS Shield
Best For: AWS customers
Features:
- Free level 3 & 4 protection for AWS customers
- Application layer protection is also available
- Always-on global DDoS protection
Deployment: Cloud/Premise
Price: Freemium
Free Trial: Available
AWS Shield is an Amazon web services solution that enables you to automatically detect and mitigate sophisticated DDoS threats. It helps you gain lots of insights into your AWS resources and is highly customizable.
You can monitor and protect up to 1,000 resource types using AWS Shield. There are the Standard and the Advanced plans. AWS Shield Standard is free for all AWS customers and includes comprehensive protection for layer 3 and 4 attacks. Higher levels of protection against application attacks require an Advanced subscription.
Obviously, AWS Shield is the best solution for Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers, but the Advanced plan can also be employed to protect assets outside of AWS.
4. Sucuri
Best For: Hacked websites
Features:
- DDoS protection and web firewall
- Hack & malware removal by experts
- Security monitoring
Deployment: Cloud/Premise
Price: From $9.99 per month
Free Trial: 30 days
Sucuri is a website security and performance platform that offers DDoS protection, web application firewalls, website backups, monitoring, and performance boosts.
Its Basic Firewall plan costs $9.99 per month and covers just one site. There is also a Pro Firewall plan with $19.98 per month.
However, the major plans start at $199 per year for the Basic Platform and $299 per year for the Pro Platform plans. These platform plans cover unlimited malware and hack removals for one site, as well as ongoing security scans, malware, and other anomaly detection.
5. Akamai
Best For: Medium to enterprise clients
Features:
- Various service packages to choose from
- Simple and adaptive solutions
- Flexible and reliable solutions for cloud and on-premises
Deployment: Cloud/Premise
Price: Varies
Free Trial: 30 days
Akamai is a popular content delivery network provider with a wide range of services. In addition, it offers many security and optimization services, including its 3 major DDoS protection products – App & API protector, Prolexic, and Edge DNS.
The App & API protector package combines a web application firewall with API security, bot mitigation, and Layer 7 DDoS protection, while the Prolexic offers a flexible and comprehensive solution with 20+ Tbps dedicated defense capacity.
Akamai’s DDoS protection pricing is not fixed, as it depends on your needs. They offer a 30-day free trial though.
6. Google Cloud Amor
Best For: Google Cloud Customers
Features:
- Google Scale DDoS and WAF
- Adaptive protection and bot management
- Pre-configured WAF rules
- Also includes a managed tier
Deployment: Cloud
Price: Pay-as-you-go
Free Trial: Yes
Armor is the DDoS protection service of the Google Cloud Platform. Backed by the power and experience of Google, it was able to fend off a Layer 7 DDoS attack in June 2022 which peaked at 46 million requests per second.
Google Cloud customers can use Armor to leverage Google’s global scale and capacity for DDoS protection and web application firewalls running on a pay-as-you-go pricing model or using the Managed Protection option.
Armor is billed at $0.75 per 1 million requests or only $0.60 for requests with regional security policies. Security policies cost $5 per policy per month, while rules cost $1 per rule per month.
The Managed Protection Plus subscription starts from $3,000 per month and includes 100 protected resources with unlimited requests for one year.
7. Link11
Best For: AI-based detection
Features:
- Fast AI-based solution
- Thwarts unknown vector attacks in 10 seconds or less
- 99.99% SLA uptime guarantee
Deployment: Cloud
Price: By request
Free Trial: N/A
Link11 uses a patented AI-based approach to provide zero time mitigation for known attack vectors and under 10 seconds for new ones.
The company offers two solutions – infrastructure DDoS and web DDoS protection. Combined, they provide 360-degree DDoS protection, with a 99.99% SLA guaranteed service uptime. Furthermore, Link11 is 100% compliant with the EU data protection directive.
8. Imperva
Best For: Comprehensive security solution
Features:
- Comprehensive feature set
- Multi-terabit scrubbing capacity
- Effective against OWASP top 10 vulnerabilities
- SLA of 99.999% availability
Deployment: Cloud
Price: Varies
Free Trial: Available
The Imperva DDoS protection platform offers a comprehensive solution for protecting applications, individual IPs, and networks against attacks.
It includes a multi-terabit scrubbing capacity, with full blocking at edge locations for attacks of any size. Imperva DDoS offers instant attack notifications via mail and SMS, easy network monitoring, and Layer 3, 4, and 7 attack management.
9. Edge Next
Best For: Tailored CDN solutions
Features:
- Tailored CDN and DDoS protection solutions
- Region-specific solutions
- Highly customizable features
Deployment: Cloud/Premise
Price: BY request
Free Trial: N/A
Edge Next is a content delivery network that offers tailored solutions for specific industries – including gaming, telcos, e-commerce, e-learning, and entertainment. Edge Next also has region-specific solutions for the Middle East, China, and Southeast Asia.
The platform offers DDoS protection, multi-conditional filtering and access control, web page protection, traffic cleansing, and acceleration features.
10. Azure DDoS Protection
Best For: Microsoft/Azure clients
Features:
- Works seamlessly with Azure services
- Easy to deploy and manage
- Detects even the most complex attacks
Deployment: Cloud
Price: PAYG
Free Trial: Yes
Microsoft and Azure clients will find the Azure DDoS protection solution a natural addition to their infrastructure, as it works seamlessly with other Azure services.
Basic DDoS protection on Azure is free and enabled by default. The standard plan, however, offers advanced features, including logging, alerting, and configurations. It can mitigate volumetric, protocol, and resource layer attacks.
DDoS Attacks FAQs
Here is a list of frequently asked questions (FAQs) about DDoS attacks and methods of protection.
Yes, DDoS protection works in most cases to reduce the risk of a potential attack from becoming successful. However, since all attacks are not equal in complexity and intensity, 100% protection is unfortunately not possible.
Bad actors use DDoS attacks for many reasons, including extortion, knocking out a competitor, revenge, political reasons, distraction away from other issues, and promoting a particular ideology or cause.
There are many types of DDoS attacks, and they include volumetric attacks like UDP and PING flooding, protocol attacks like SYN and DNS flooding, as well as application layer attacks like HTTP flooding and recursive GET attacks.
Yes, false positives can occur, leading DDoS protection platforms to impact legitimate traffic. This depends, however, on the effectiveness of the algorithms or techniques used.
Yes, platforms such as AppTrana and Cloudflare offer free basic services.
A: Sure you can, but its efficiency is the issue. There are equally open-source solutions like CrowdSec and GateKeeper that you can work with.
Conclusion
Rounding up this list of the best DDoS protection platforms, you have seen the easy-to-use and highly flexible offers. You have equally seen the free and advanced systems designed for all business sizes.
Where you go from here and which service you choose is up to you, depending on your organization’s unique requirements or the value you place on security.
