Skip to main content

What's the Difference Between AWS Network Firewall and AWS Shield?

Compare AWS Network Firewall and AWS Shield side by side — features, pricing, and ideal use cases to help you choose the right product.

Compare side-by-side

Comparisons
AWS Network Firewall
AWS Shield
Category

Security, Network Security

Security, Network / app protection
Description

Network-level protection for VPCs with customizable rules

Managed DDoS protection for web applications
Best for
  • VPC protection
  • Intrusion prevention
  • Web filtering
  • Outbound traffic control
  • DDoS protection
  • Application availability
  • Cost protection
  • Attack visibility
Key features
  • Stateful inspection
  • Intrusion prevention
  • Web filtering
  • Suricata-compatible rules
  • Centralized management
  • Always-on detection
  • Automatic mitigation
  • DDoS Response Team
  • Cost protection
  • Real-time visibility
Pricing model

Pay per firewall endpoint hour + GB processed

Standard: free; Advanced: $3,000/month
Free tier

No

Yes
Expert take

“Network Firewall provides stateful inspection, intrusion prevention, and web filtering at VPC boundaries. It scales automatically and integrates with Firewall Manager for multi-account deployment.”
— Giovanni Lauria, re:Post Top Contributor [profile]

“Shield Standard is automatic and free; it handles most network-layer DDoS. Shield Advanced adds the DDoS Response Team, cost protection (AWS credits back DDoS-induced scaling costs), and application-layer visibility. Worth it for internet-facing production workloads where downtime has real revenue impact.”
— Didier Durand, re:Post Top Contributor [profile]
Product page

Learn more about AWS Network Firewall »

Learn more about AWS Shield »

When to use AWS Network Firewall or AWS Shield

Use AWS Network Firewall when:

  • VPC protection
  • Intrusion prevention
  • Web filtering
  • Outbound traffic control

Learn more about AWS Network Firewall »

Use AWS Shield when:

  • DDoS protection
  • Application availability
  • Cost protection
  • Attack visibility

Learn more about AWS Shield »

AWS product comparisons

Read about AWS products side-by-side

Displaying 1-8 (21)
2026-07-30

What's the difference between Amazon Aurora and Amazon Neptune?

Both are purpose-built, fully managed AWS databases, but they solve fundamentally different problems. Aurora handles structured relational data with SQL; Neptune handles highly connected data where relationships between entities are the primary query pattern.
Learn more
2026-07-30

What's the difference between Amazon RDS and Amazon Redshift?

Both run SQL queries, but they're optimized for fundamentally different workloads. RDS handles transactional operations (inserts, updates, lookups) for your application. Redshift handles analytical queries (aggregations, scans, joins across billions of rows) for your data team.
Learn more
2026-07-30

What's the difference between Amazon Aurora and Amazon DynamoDB?

Both are fully managed AWS database services, but they serve fundamentally different data models and access patterns. Aurora is a relational database for structured data with relationships; DynamoDB is a NoSQL key-value store built for single-digit millisecond performance at any scale.
Learn more
2026-07-30

What's the difference between Amazon DocumentDB and Amazon Neptune?

Both handle semi-structured data, but they're optimized for different query patterns. DocumentDB stores and queries JSON documents; Neptune stores and traverses relationships between entities.
Learn more
2026-07-30

What are the differences between Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon DocumentDB?

Both are fully managed NoSQL databases on AWS, but they serve different data models. DynamoDB is a key-value store optimized for known access patterns at massive scale; DocumentDB is a document database for flexible JSON schemas with MongoDB compatibility.
Learn more
2026-07-30

What's the difference between Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon Keyspaces?

Both are fully managed, serverless-capable NoSQL databases on AWS. DynamoDB is AWS-native with its own API and data model; Keyspaces is Apache Cassandra-compatible, letting you use existing Cassandra drivers, tools, and expertise.
Learn more
2026-07-30

What's the difference between Amazon ElastiCache and Amazon MemoryDB?

Both are Redis-compatible, fully managed in-memory services on AWS. ElastiCache is designed as a caching layer in front of another database; MemoryDB is designed as a primary database that combines in-memory speed with Multi-AZ durability.
Learn more
2026-07-30

What's the difference between Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS?

Both are fully managed relational database services on AWS, but Aurora is a cloud-native engine built for higher performance and availability, while RDS gives you familiar open-source and commercial engines with less operational overhead than self-managed.
Learn more

Did you find what you were looking for today?

Let us know so we can improve the quality of the content on our pages