Market Landscape
The DDoS Protection
Landscape in 2026
Three categories of tools. Three different approaches. Most teams only have one — Flowtriq bridges detection and mitigation in a single platform.
$14B
Market Size by 2034
~14%
Annual Growth (CAGR)
71%
Orgs Hit by DDoS in 2025
Three Market Segments
Different tools solve different problems
The DDoS market has three distinct layers. Most organizations deploy one. The best-protected deploy all three.
Cloud Scrubbers
Absorb & Filter
Route traffic through a global proxy network that absorbs volumetric floods before they reach your origin. Measured in Tbps capacity.
Cloudflare 321 Tbps edge capacity, WAF + L7 proxy
Akamai Prolexic 20+ Tbps, BGP-based scrubbing
AWS Shield Adv. Inline with ALB/CloudFront, $3k/mo base
Google Cloud Armor Adaptive protection, ML-based L7 rules
Azure DDoS Prot. Always-on for VNet resources, $2.9k/mo
Strengths
- Absorb multi-Tbps volumetric floods
- Global anycast — attack diffused across PoPs
- Always-on, zero infrastructure to manage
Gaps
- Blind to traffic that never touches the proxy
- Limited forensics — no raw PCAP
- No visibility into what hits your origin directly
- Expensive at scale ($3K–$40K+/mo)
Hardware Appliances
Inspect & Block
On-premise appliances at the network edge that inspect traffic at line rate using ASICs and FPGAs. Measured in Mpps throughput.
Arbor (Netscout) Sightline + TMS, ATLAS threat intel
Radware DefensePro Behavioral analysis, hybrid cloud+appliance
Corero SmartWall Sub-second auto-mitigation, ISP-grade
F5 Silverline Hybrid DDoS + WAF, BIG-IP based
Huawei AntiDDoS In-line + off-ramp modes, CNCERT feeds
Strengths
- Wire-speed inspection — no added latency
- Deep packet inspection for protocol anomalies
- Full control over mitigation policies
Gaps
- Capacity ceiling — can't absorb volumetric floods
- 6–7 figure CAPEX + maintenance contracts
- Alert fatigue from raw flow data, limited classification
- No cloud visibility — blind to hybrid infra
Detection & Mitigation
Detect, Classify & Mitigate
Agent-based platforms that detect attacks per-server, classify attack types, auto-deploy BGP mitigation rules, trigger cloud scrubbing, and capture forensic evidence. Measured in detection-to-mitigation latency.
Flowtriq 1-sec detection, BGP FlowSpec/RTBH, cloud scrub, PCAP, 7+ alert channels
FastNetMon Flow-based detection, BGP blackhole triggers
Wanguard Flow analysis + BGP/RTBH integration
Kentik Network observability + DDoS detection module
Strengths
- Sees what actually hits your servers — even behind proxies
- Rich forensics: PCAP capture, attack classification, source profiling
- Auto-mitigation via BGP FlowSpec, RTBH, and cloud scrubbing
- Lightweight — no DNS/routing changes, deploys in minutes
- 4-level escalation: rate-limit → FlowSpec → RTBH → cloud scrub
Gaps
- Doesn't absorb volumetric floods inline (triggers upstream scrubbing instead)
- Requires BGP adapter or cloud provider API for network-level mitigation
Side-by-Side Comparison
Feature matrix across categories
No single tool does everything. See where each category excels — and where it needs help.
| Capability | Cloud Scrubbers | HW Appliances | Flowtriq |
|---|---|---|---|
| Detection | |||
| Volumetric flood absorption | ✓ Tbps | ~ limited | ✗ |
| Detection latency | 5–60s | 1–10s | ≤ 1 second |
| Per-server visibility | ✗ | partial | ✓ every node |
| Protocol-level classification | basic | ✓ DPI | ✓ 8 families |
| Confidence scoring | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ 0–100% |
| IP spoofing detection | ✗ | some | ✓ TTL analysis |
| Dynamic baselines (auto-tune) | some | some | ✓ per node |
| Response & Mitigation | |||
| Inline traffic filtering | ✓ | ✓ | via BGP/cloud |
| Auto-mitigation rules | WAF rules | ✓ ACLs | ✓ 22 action types |
| iptables / nftables rules | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ auto |
| Cloudflare WAF integration | ✓ native | ✗ | ✓ API |
| BGP FlowSpec / RTBH | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ auto-escalation |
| Cloud scrubbing trigger | ✓ native | ✗ | ✓ CF, OVH, Hetzner |
| Forensics & Visibility | |||
| PCAP capture | ✗ | expensive add-on | ✓ included |
| Pre-attack packet buffer | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ 1000-pkt ring |
| Source IP profiling | sampled | ✓ | ✓ full |
| Threat intel enrichment | some | ✓ ATLAS | ✓ IOC + feeds |
| Historical analytics | limited | limited | ✓ dashboard |
| Alerting & Integration | |||
| Multi-channel alerts | email + SNMP | ✓ 7+ channels | |
| Discord / Slack rich embeds | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| PagerDuty / OpsGenie | basic | SNMP trap | ✓ native |
| Escalation policies | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Public status pages | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Operations | |||
| Deploy time | hours–days | weeks | 5 minutes |
| DNS/routing changes required | yes | yes | ✗ none |
| Works behind existing CDN/proxy | conflicts | separate | ✓ |
| Typical cost | $3K–$40K+/mo | $50K–$500K+ CAPEX | $9.99/node/mo |
Where Flowtriq Fits
Detection and mitigation in a single platform
Cloud scrubbers absorb floods. Hardware appliances filter at the edge. But neither gives you per-server detection, automatic escalation, or forensic evidence. Flowtriq does all three.
Flowtriq detects attacks per-server in under 1 second, then automatically deploys mitigation — from local rate-limiting all the way up to cloud scrubbing — based on escalation policies you define.
- Install a lightweight agent on each server in 5 minutes
- 1-second detection with 8-family classification and IOC matching
- Auto-deploy BGP FlowSpec rate-limits and RTBH blackholes via ExaBGP or GoBGP
- Trigger cloud scrubbing (Cloudflare Magic Transit, OVH VAC, Hetzner)
- 4-level escalation: local → FlowSpec → RTBH → cloud scrub
- Capture full PCAP evidence — including 1,000-packet pre-attack buffer
- Route alerts to Discord, Slack, PagerDuty, or any webhook
Layer 1 — Edge / Cloud
Cloud Scrubbers
Cloudflare, Akamai, AWS Shield, Azure, GCP
Absorb volumetric floods at the network edge
↓ traffic passes through ↓
Layer 2 — On-Premise
Hardware Appliances
Arbor TMS, Radware, Corero, F5
Wire-speed DPI and ACL enforcement at your edge
↓ remaining traffic ↓
Layer 3 — Per-Server
Flowtriq — Detection, Mitigation & Forensics
1-sec detection → auto BGP FlowSpec/RTBH → cloud scrub escalation → PCAP + alerts
Detect, mitigate, and capture evidence on every server
Common Questions
We already have DDoS protection
Great — Flowtriq makes it better. Here's how it works with what you already have.
We use Cloudflare / Akamai for DDoS protection. Why do we need Flowtriq?
Cloud scrubbers protect traffic that routes through them. But direct-to-origin attacks, application-layer floods that bypass CDN rules, and traffic hitting non-proxied services are invisible to them. Flowtriq sees every packet that hits each server — including what slips through. Plus you get PCAP evidence, attack classification, and multi-channel alerts that Cloudflare doesn't provide.
We already have Arbor / Corero / Radware appliances. Isn't that enough?
Hardware appliances are outstanding at wire-speed mitigation at your network edge. But they can't tell you exactly which server was targeted, what the attack classification is with a confidence score, or give you per-server PCAP with pre-attack context. Flowtriq adds the per-node detection and forensic depth that appliances weren't built for — at $9.99/node instead of six figures in CAPEX.
We have AWS Shield Advanced. Why add another tool?
AWS Shield protects resources behind ALB, CloudFront, and Route 53. But it doesn't see attacks on bare EC2 instances, doesn't capture PCAP, doesn't classify attack families with confidence scores, and can't send alerts to Discord or PagerDuty natively. Deploy Flowtriq's agent on each EC2 instance to fill those blind spots — without any changes to your AWS networking.
What does Flowtriq detect that our existing stack doesn't?
Three things: (1) Attacks that bypass your proxy or scrubber — direct-to-IP floods, reflected traffic, application-layer attacks. (2) Per-server attribution — which specific server was targeted, not just which VIP. (3) Forensic evidence — timestamped PCAP with pre-attack ring buffer, 8-family classification with confidence scores, and source IP profiling with spoofing detection.
Do I need to change my DNS or routing to use Flowtriq?
No. Flowtriq is a lightweight agent that installs on each server via
pip install ftagent — no DNS changes, no BGP updates, no proxy configuration. It runs alongside your existing stack and reports to the Flowtriq dashboard. Deploy in 5 minutes, works immediately behind any CDN, load balancer, or appliance.How does pricing compare to existing solutions?
Cloud scrubbers: $3,000–$40,000+/month. Hardware appliances: $50,000–$500,000+ upfront plus maintenance. Flowtriq: $9.99/node/month ($7.99 annual). Unlimited incidents, PCAP, alerts, and team seats included. No traffic surcharges, no per-GB billing. 7-day free trial, no credit card required.
Get Started
Add detection and mitigation to your stack in 5 minutes
Flowtriq works standalone or alongside Cloudflare, AWS Shield, Arbor, and other tools. Deploy the agent, configure your BGP adapters or cloud scrubbing, and get full detect-to-mitigate coverage — no DNS changes, no rip-and-replace.