Color: Blue team.
What Is This Category?
Mix (11 tools)
- License: 5 open source · 6 proprietary
- Hosting: 5 self-hosted · 4 SaaS · 2 both
DDoS mitigation absorbs and filters distributed- denial-of-service traffic before it reaches the protected service. Two tiers: volumetric (Tbps- class scrubbing centres absorbing the flood – commercial-only territory) and L7 (per-request rate-limiting / challenge-response against application-layer floods – OSS options exist).
Distinct from neighbouring categories
- Web Application Firewalls – WAF inspects request payload for malicious content; DDoS mitigation rate-limits and absorbs the volume of requests, malicious or not
- Load Balancing / ADC – Load balancers spread legitimate load; DDoS mitigation stops illegitimate load
- Firewall, Routing & UTM – Firewall is per-flow rule matching at perimeter; DDoS mitigation is high-volume traffic scrubbing
About this data & disclaimer
The information on these pages was researched by a combination of human review and large language models. This catalogue serves as a reference for the resources, applications, devices, deployment payloads, and other components that the ResorsIT platform integrates, deploys, and manages. To suggest an addition or correction, please contact us. Prepared by Rhodium Systems Inc., author of the ResorsIT platform — a unified IT operations management platform for IT teams and MSPs that integrates a curated suite of open-source, commercial, and SaaS applications into a single system with shared identity, single sign-on, access control, and a common audit trail. This information is compiled on a best-effort basis: it may be incomplete, contain errors, and become out of date as tools, vendors, licences, and features change. Use this catalogue only as a starting point for your own research, and independently verify and review any tool carefully against your own requirements before relying on it.
Comparison
Overview
DDoS mitigation splits four ways: OSS L7 rate- limiting (nginx, HAProxy stick-tables), OSS IPS / log-based (CrowdSec, fail2ban), commercial edge / scrubbing (Cloudflare, Akamai Prolexic, AWS Shield, Imperva), and on-prem appliance / carrier-scale (NetScout Arbor, Radware DefensePro, FastNetMon – the seed). Most production deployments layer two or three.
Capability Matrix
| Tool | L7 | L3/L4 | Volumetric | Self-Host | Multi-Tbps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FastNetMon Community | – | yes (detect+trigger) | – | yes | – |
| nginx + limit_req | yes | – | – | yes | – |
| HAProxy stick-tables | yes | – | – | yes | – |
| CrowdSec | yes | partial | – | yes | – |
| fail2ban | yes (modest) | – | – | yes | – |
| Cloudflare DDoS | yes | yes (Magic Transit) | yes | – | yes |
| Akamai Prolexic | yes | yes | yes | – | yes |
| NetScout Arbor | yes | yes | yes | yes (on-prem appliance) | yes |
| Radware DefensePro | yes | yes | yes | yes (on-prem) | yes |
| AWS Shield Advanced | yes | yes | yes | – (AWS-native) | yes |
| Imperva DDoS | yes | yes | yes | – | yes |
License Comparison
| Tool | License | OSI | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| FastNetMon Community | GPL-2.0-only | yes | OSS detector |
| nginx + limit_req | BSD-2-Clause | yes | OSS web server module |
| HAProxy stick-tables | GPL-2.0-only | yes | OSS load-balancer feature |
| CrowdSec | MIT | yes | OSS modern IPS |
| fail2ban | GPL-2.0-only | yes | OSS log-watcher |
| Cloudflare DDoS | Proprietary | – | SaaS (free L7 bundled) |
| Akamai Prolexic | Proprietary | – | SaaS scrubbing |
| NetScout Arbor | Proprietary | – | On-prem appliance + cloud |
| Radware DefensePro | Proprietary | – | On-prem appliance + cloud |
| AWS Shield Advanced | Proprietary | – | AWS-native SaaS |
| Imperva DDoS | Proprietary | – | SaaS (bundled with WAF) |
Composition Patterns
1. OSS baseline for any web property
nginx + limit_req (or HAProxy stick-tables) -- L7 rate-limit CrowdSec (or fail2ban) -- log-driven IP banning
Output: L7 baseline at zero license cost. Doesn’t cover volumetric / L3-L4 attacks.
2. Cloudflare-fronted web property
Cloudflare DDoS Protection (free L7 bundled)
+ nginx limit_req (defence in depth)Output: edge volumetric absorption + L7 rate-limit in origin. Free Cloudflare tier covers most web properties.
3. Enterprise customer with own IP space
Akamai Prolexic (or NetScout Arbor or Radware DefensePro)
+ on-prem appliance for L7 + IT-side
+ FastNetMon as detection / trigger layerOutput: full enterprise / carrier DDoS mitigation with BGP-routed scrubbing.
4. AWS-native customer
AWS Shield Advanced
+ AWS WAF (managed rules)
+ AWS Firewall Manager (multi-account)Output: AWS-native DDoS mitigation. Bundled WAF rules + cost protection.
Cost Tier
Annual TCO for a mid-size customer web property.
| Tier | Tooling | Approx Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Free | nginx + HAProxy + CrowdSec + fail2ban + Cloudflare free L7 | $0 + operator time |
| Mid | Cloudflare Magic Transit | $5,000-30,000 / year |
| High | AWS Shield Advanced | $36,000 / year base + traffic |
| Top | Akamai Prolexic / NetScout / Radware | $100,000-500,000 / year |
Tools
11 tools.
Akamai Prolexic
Akamai’s premier DDoS-scrubbing service; long-standing enterprise reference for high-volume L3 / L4 DDoS protection.
License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: OIDC, SAML
ResorsIT usage: Web App with SSO
Access & Identity: Single sign-on · Provisioned account
AWS Shield Advanced
AWS’s enterprise DDoS-mitigation service; complements AWS Shield Standard (free) with managed mitigation + cost protection.
License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: OIDC, SAML
ResorsIT usage: Web App with SSO
Access & Identity: Single sign-on · Provisioned account
Cloudflare DDoS Protection
Cloudflare’s edge DDoS-mitigation tier; free L7 protection on every site behind Cloudflare; Magic Transit + Spectrum for L3 / L4 customer infrastructure.
License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: OIDC, SAML
ResorsIT usage: Web App with SSO
Access & Identity: Single sign-on · Provisioned account
CrowdSec
Modern open-source IPS + collaborative blocklist; analyses logs in real time and blocks malicious IPs; community-fed threat intelligence.
License: MIT (OSS) · Kind: service · Deploy: direct, docker, package · SSO: none
ResorsIT usage: Deployment Payload
Access & Identity: Vaulted credential · Local host account · Key-based access
fail2ban
Long-standing OSS log-monitoring + IP-banning service; SSH brute- force protection is the canonical use case; modest L7 DDoS tier.
License: GPL-2.0-only (OSS) · Kind: service · Deploy: direct, package · SSO: none
ResorsIT usage: Deployment Payload
Access & Identity: Vaulted credential · Local host account · Key-based access
FastNetMon Community
Open-source high-performance DDoS-detection toolkit; sFlow / Netflow / mirror-based detection, BGP black-hole and FlowSpec announcement on attack.
License: GPL-2.0-only (OSS) · Kind: service · Deploy: direct, docker, package · SSO: none
ResorsIT usage: Deployment Payload
Access & Identity: Vaulted credential · Local host account · Key-based access
HAProxy stick-tables
HAProxy’s stick-tables feature; per-client rate / volume tracking with configurable thresholds; first-line L7 DDoS in HAProxy deployments.
License: GPL-2.0-only (OSS) · Kind: service · Deploy: direct, docker, package · SSO: none
ResorsIT usage: Deployment Payload
Access & Identity: Vaulted credential · Local host account · Key-based access
Imperva DDoS Protection
Imperva’s DDoS-mitigation tier; bundled with their WAF / API security platform; Israeli vendor with strong enterprise WAF heritage.
License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: OIDC, SAML
ResorsIT usage: Web App with SSO
Access & Identity: Single sign-on · Provisioned account
NetScout Arbor
NetScout’s DDoS-detection + mitigation platform; on-prem + cloud scrubbing centres; long-standing reference at carrier / ISP scale.
License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: direct, saas · SSO: OIDC, SAML
ResorsIT usage: Web App with SSO
Access & Identity: Single sign-on · Directory / LDAP · Provisioned account
nginx + ngx_http_limit_req
nginx’s built-in rate-limiting module; first-line L7 DDoS mitigation that ships with every nginx deployment.
License: BSD-2-Clause (OSS) · Kind: service · Deploy: direct, docker, package · SSO: none
ResorsIT usage: Deployment Payload
Access & Identity: Vaulted credential · Local host account · Key-based access
Radware DefensePro
Radware’s DDoS-mitigation platform; on-prem appliances + Cloud DDoS Protection Service; Israeli vendor with strong telecom presence.
License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: direct, saas · SSO: OIDC, SAML
ResorsIT usage: Web App with SSO
Access & Identity: Single sign-on · Directory / LDAP · Provisioned account
