Amazon Route 53 vs. AWS WAF

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Amazon Route 53
Score 9.7 out of 10
N/A
Amazon Route 53 is a Cloud Domain Name System (DNS) offered by Amazon AWS as a reliable way to route visitors to web applications and other site traffic to locations within a company's infrastructure, which can be configured to monitor the health and performance of traffic and endpoints in the network.
$0.40
Per Zone Per Month
AWS WAF
Score 7.3 out of 10
N/A
Amazon Web Services offers AWS WAF (web application firewall) to protect web applications from malicious behavior that might impede the applications functioning and performance, with customizable rules to prevent known harmful behaviors and an API for creating and deploying web security rules.
$0.60
per 1 million requests
Pricing
Amazon Route 53AWS WAF
Editions & Modules
Standard
$0.40
Per Zone Per Month
Queries
$0.60
Per Million Queries
Resource Type - Request
$0.60
per 1 million requests
Resource Type - Rule
$1.00
per month (prorated hourly)
Resource Type - Web ACL
$5.00
per month (prorated hourly)
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Amazon Route 53AWS WAF
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Amazon Route 53AWS WAF
Considered Both Products
Amazon Route 53
Chose Amazon Route 53
We didn't test any other product like Amazon Route 53, we were doing all these settings by ourselves.
Chose Amazon Route 53
We purchased our domain names through Networksolutions.com and do rely on their DNS services for basic functionality (SPF hard reject records, etc.), since it was included at no cost; however, for our main domains, we utilize Route 53 because of AWS's high availability, …
Chose Amazon Route 53
Amazon is priced higher than Google's DNS, but since our gear (Cloudfront, ALB, etc) is in AWS, Amazon Route 53 is easier to use sop we don't have to manage two vendors.
Chose Amazon Route 53
Cloudflare is also similar in the features to Route 53. However, since we are completely hosted on the AWS cloud, we can't use Cloudflare for configuring our internal networks, and integrating with the other services. The API based integration of AWS via Terraform is another …
Chose Amazon Route 53
This was the POC that was done during the initial stage but we never put this in production
Chose Amazon Route 53
Amazon Route 53 DNS service is much better than GCP and Azure or any other cloud provider DNS service due to the fact that it not only provides basic DNS service but on top of it it offers firewall DNS feature i.e. rules and policies can be defined to allow/reject certain …
Chose Amazon Route 53
Since we are heavy users of AWS, it was only natural for us to go with Route53. It's well integrated with other AWS services, and domain creation and modifications can get automated with the infrastructure itself, with tools like terraform.
We also use Cloudfront and ALBs …
Chose Amazon Route 53
Amazon Route 53 is intended for simple websites that host HTML5 or static content. This is probably the default solution if you need something simple and don't want to rent a web server to host a website. It is good to host full functional but simple website or HTML5 game.
Chose Amazon Route 53
Kinda of costly and doesn't have many services which Amazon is able to offer. And Route 53 is slightly faster than it.
Chose Amazon Route 53
When working with AWS, Route 53 is hands down the better solution. If you live in GCP, then Google Cloud DNS is the way to go. GoDaddy is more of a consumer-facing product and is perfectly fine when Services are not being utilized in any Cloud Environment. Eventually, all of …
Chose Amazon Route 53
Route 53 is one of those essential services that you'll inevitably come across. It's one of the easiest to understand and configure in AWS, and using it is helpful if you're making use of any other components in the AWS ecosystem because most other components will …
Chose Amazon Route 53
I only compared to BIND, as we intend to migrate to AWS as soon as possible.
Chose Amazon Route 53
Both Azure DNS and GoDaddy's DNS works great, but when you use AWS services and infrastructure, it is much easier to use AWS DNS service. Using AWS DNS service you can manage and maintain your infrastructure in one place, it saves some time. If you use AWS services, you can …
Chose Amazon Route 53
GoDaddy is fine if you just want to have a domain and set up a few simple records. But if part of your business is transferring domains and constantly updating records for new websites, email changes, and security, then a registrar-based DNS service just won't cut it. Route 53 …
Chose Amazon Route 53
Infoblox is the one we used on premises and briefly looked at for AWS. Route 53 however is well suited for our needs and was easier to implement. As AWS was already new for use, learning Route 53 anew made no difference in selecting it.
Chose Amazon Route 53
CloudFlare has been good for anything external facing, but Route53 has met our needs perfectly for anything internal.
Chose Amazon Route 53
Route 53 is head and shoulders above GoDaddy. GoDaddy's DNS availability was problematic with us earlier on and at that time we made a decision to move our domains to Route 53 under Amazon. Since then we haven't experienced any DNS outages and it has been pretty rock solid. …
Chose Amazon Route 53
Route53 was used because I initially thought we were going to have our infrastructure on AWS. Once our team transitioned to Google Cloud, I was left scrambling to migrate our DNS solution to point to those servers instead. Because there is a mandatory 45-day transfer wait …
Chose Amazon Route 53
I have experience running several on-site DNS services such as PowerDNS, djbdns, bind, and others. Route 53 removes the need to manage the server and DNS software, allowing you to focus on the DNS content itself.
Chose Amazon Route 53
We chose Amazon Route 53 over Azure DNS for its advanced routing, built-in health checks, and seamless integration with AWS services like EC2, ALB, and CloudFront. Amazon Route 53 also supports domain registration and automated failover, which Azure DNS lacks natively. Its …
AWS WAF
Chose AWS WAF
When it comes to integration with AWS resources, we found that AWS WAF can easily integrate with CloudFront, API gateway, ALB, etc. When we analyzed other products, we found that the integration can be a little more difficult than just a click of a button. However, the pricing …
Chose AWS WAF
Easy of use. Setup and configuration is fairly quick. There are the usual advantages of it being a cloud solution where you can buy into the solution, configure it and set it up and get it up and running. If you are already a subscriber to AWS, having a native service has …
Chose AWS WAF
Comparatively, AWS WAF is far more prevalent in modern age web application as most of the High-Traffic E-commerce sites are moved on AWS. Due to this most developers are familiar with WAF, in addition its pretty easy comparatively as well. So other solutions may only come into …
Chose AWS WAF
There are a number of reasons to select AWS WAF. Most importantly, it easy to deploy. It helps programmers to protect against a wide range of vulnerabilities like injection attacks, DDoS, and many others from OWASP top 10. It allows us to set up rules and blocks any threats …
Chose AWS WAF
The integration with AWS services is pretty straight forward and provides a lot of functionalities other products don't. AWS Managed Rules can be used for easy setup with high protection options or Custom Rules can be created to costomize WAF to fit our needs.
Chose AWS WAF
Unlike these other AWS tools, WAF provides real-time traffic control, rules that can be customized according to the needs of the user, and is based on an implementation in the cloud which avoids the use of memory on computers as well as an account with a very affordable cost …
Chose AWS WAF
The use of this software was decided on because it is much easier to manage since the rules that are implemented can be specific or centralized. We also like it because you only pay for what you used.

Imperva SecureSphere requires a much higher learning curve.
Chose AWS WAF
We evaluated Imperva, but we were more convinced with AWS WAF because of the better pricing model, ease of deployment as we were already using the AWS platform which helping in ease of integration. The technical support for AWS WAF seemed to be better as they had better …
Best Alternatives
Amazon Route 53AWS WAF
Small Businesses
Cloudflare
Cloudflare
Score 8.7 out of 10
Cloudflare
Cloudflare
Score 8.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Cloudflare
Cloudflare
Score 8.7 out of 10
F5 Big-IP Advanced WAF
F5 Big-IP Advanced WAF
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Google Cloud DNS
Google Cloud DNS
Score 8.9 out of 10
F5 Big-IP Advanced WAF
F5 Big-IP Advanced WAF
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Amazon Route 53AWS WAF
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.6
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Amazon Route 53AWS WAF
Likelihood to Recommend
- Routing users to the closest or best-performing resources: Route 53 allows you to use geolocation and latency-based routing to route users to the resources that will give them the best performance. - Load balancing: Route 53 can be used to distribute incoming traffic across multiple resources, such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances or Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) tasks, to improve the availability and scalability of your application. - Managing domain names: Route 53 can be used to register domain names and manage DNS records, making it a one-stop solution for managing your domain name and routing traffic to your resources. Scenarios where Route 53 is less appropriate include:Applications with very high query rates: Route 53 is designed to handle millions of queries per second, but if your application generates an extremely high query rate, you may need to use a specialized DNS service.Applications that require very low latency: Route 53 is designed to provide low-latency DNS service, but if your application requires ultra-low latency, you may need to use a specialized DNS service or a self-hosted DNS solution.Applications that require advanced security features: Route 53 provides basic security features such as DNSSEC, but if your application requires advanced security features such as DDoS protection, you may need to use a specialized DNS service.
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AWS WAF is highly appropriate to interrupt or prevent cyber attacks because when implementing rules, whether they are specific or centralized, so any application that has these vulnerabilities is protected.
Implementing managed rules creates greater security to protect both API and applications. If implemented along with other AWS tools, the security is much better, so if you want to protect applications against more specific attacks, it is ideal to integrate with Amazon CloudFront, which is a great benefit because it warns when thresholds are exceeded or specific attacks occur. AWS WAF is ideal to avoid common web attacks. For more specific attacks and scenarios, I don't recommend this.
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Pros
  • We can purchase our domain through Route 53 and can be hosted for cheaper prices in AWS.
  • There are many number of routing policies you can go ahead with and this will come into picture when the customer satisfaction is required at most, so choose routing policy accordingly.
  • As usual health checks are part of DNS systems, this is also provided at cheaper rates when total process is done in Route 53 service.
  • It can be used as standalone application from AWS
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  • AWS WAF has the most developer-friendly API to create firewall rules.
  • AWS WAF provides OWASP security controls, which reduces developers' burden (i.e., SQL injection and cross-site scripting).
  • AWS WAF has customizable web security rules. The user can even push the rules through the API available, which is the great feature and helped me a lot.
  • It protects applications at layer 7 (HTTP) of the OSI model and not just layer 4 (TCP).
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Cons
  • Price, it is not expensive ... but you can find some cheaper and even free DNS solutions.
  • If you use non-AWS infrastructure, Route 53 doesn't have significant advantages on other services.
  • AWS Route 53 does not support forwarding or conditional forwarding options for domains used on an on-premise network.
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  • The documentation offered is somewhat confusing, so it would be ideal if it were much more direct and precise.
  • Your initial configuration may be confusing, so the best option is to use the rule templates provided by AWS.
  • Its configuration is not unified with AWS, so it must be done separately and it takes some time.
  • The number of rules to be established is somewhat limited.
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Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
We have been using AWS WAF for the past 3 years in front of our websites. We find it useful in preventing data crawling, DDOS attacks, etc on our websites, and hence we are going to use it in the future as well. AWS WAF is one of the best Firewalls in business.
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Usability
You need to know what DNS is; this is a tool built for developers who already know the technology and are just looking for a DNS management tool. The tool is very usable given that. If you're not familiar with DNS, Route53 isn't really for you and you won't find it to be very usable-- you'll need to go read the documentation, and that will start with learning what DNS is
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The product is highly scalable. It is easy to configure the rules and thereby helps us to mitigate many vulnerabilities. The interface and programming of the firewall provisions were easy to setup. Amazon clearly spent a lot of time figuring this out and perfecting it. It allows users to do customized configurations based on their needs. It provides protection against a number of security issues like XSS, SQL injection, etc. I would definitely recommend this for protecting your infra as you scale, since this basically protects and filters all requests hitting your application server.
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Support Rating
Until today, I have never needed support to Route53 because the documentation is great. But, I have needed it for other services. And they're near perfect always. Except that they don't have Portuguese support yet and they're sometimes slow to answer (48 hours in non-critical ones, in two tickets). But usually, they're amazing!
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If you're intending to use AWS WAF, I would say that you absolutely should sign up for support. AWS Support is excellent and they can help you in a really good way to solve your issues.
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Alternatives Considered
Cloudflare is also similar in the features to Route 53. However, since we are completely hosted on the AWS cloud, we can't use Cloudflare for configuring our internal networks, and integrating with the other services. The API based integration of AWS via Terraform is another factor that allows us to automate most of our deployments and manage them programmatically
Read full review
Easy of use. Setup and configuration is fairly quick. There are the usual advantages of it being a cloud solution where you can buy into the solution, configure it and set it up and get it up and running. If you are already a subscriber to AWS, having a native service has its advantages.
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Return on Investment
  • All of our brand domain names (about 80 brands) are managed in there
  • Many non marketing or brand domains are also in there
  • There isn't any defined ROI because it's such a trivial and necessary service with impacts all business operations
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  • Somewhat costly if specific needs are not there.
  • If security is concerned than comparatively is beneficial.
  • All those price that spent on AWS WAF in return gets saved in man hours.
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