CIO Brief: Shield Standard vs. Advanced — Is Paid DDoS Protection Worth It?

Retrospective: this article looks back at events from December 2016, written in 2026 with the benefit of hindsight.

The short version: Every AWS customer gets Shield Standard free, and it handles the most common DDoS attacks. Shield Advanced is a paid upgrade that adds expert help, better visibility and protection against surprise scaling bills. Most companies do not need it for everything. Some need it for a few things.

What Standard gives you

Automatic protection against common network-layer attacks on AWS edge services, with no setup and no added cost. For a marketing site or internal tool, Standard plus a web application firewall is usually enough.

What Advanced adds

• Access to AWS's DDoS response specialists during an attack.
• Better detection and reporting for your specific applications.
• Credits for scaling charges caused by an attack.
• Included use of AWS WAF on protected resources.

It comes with a significant monthly fee and an annual commitment, so it is a business decision, not a technical default.

How to decide

Ask three questions:

1. What does an hour of downtime cost for this application, in revenue and reputation?
2. Are we a likely target? Online retail, gaming, financial services, politically visible organizations and companies with public disputes are attacked more often.
3. Can our team handle an attack alone at 2 a.m.?

If downtime is expensive, the risk is real and the team is thin, Advanced pays for itself. If not, invest in a CDN, a web application firewall and a tested response plan first.

The decision

Ask your team for a list of public applications ranked by downtime cost, with a recommendation for each. Buy Advanced for the top of the list only, and revisit the decision every year.