Software-defined DDoS detection without the hardware appliance
A10 Thunder TPS is a purpose-built hardware scrubber for data center perimeters. Flowtriq is a software agent that deploys on any Linux server in 5 minutes, detects attacks in 1-2 seconds, and auto-escalates mitigation at $9.99/node/month.
The cost gap
What a Thunder TPS deployment actually costs
A10 Thunder TPS is enterprise hardware designed for data center perimeters. Pricing reflects that positioning.
The hardware appliance trade-off
What comes with a hardware-first approach
Hardware DDoS appliances like Thunder TPS are powerful, but the deployment model carries trade-offs that software-defined detection avoids.
Significant CapEx before a single attack is stopped
Thunder TPS pricing starts in the tens of thousands for entry-level models and scales to hundreds of thousands for high-throughput configurations. That is before annual support, rack space, power, cooling, and professional services for deployment.
Data center only
Thunder TPS is a physical appliance that requires rack space in your data center. If you run infrastructure across multiple colocations, cloud providers, or edge locations, each site needs its own appliance. Software agents deploy anywhere Linux runs.
Perimeter visibility, not per-server visibility
Inline appliances see aggregate traffic at the data center edge. They do not see per-server traffic patterns or build individual baselines for each node. Below-threshold attacks targeting a single server can pass through undetected.
Procurement and deployment take months
Hardware procurement, shipping, rack installation, network topology changes to route traffic through the appliance, policy configuration, and tuning. The timeline from purchase order to production protection is measured in weeks to months.
Side-by-side comparison
A10 Thunder TPS vs Flowtriq
A factual comparison across detection, mitigation, deployment, and pricing.
| Capability | Flowtriq | A10 Thunder TPS |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment | ||
| Deployment model | Software agent on existing servers | Dedicated hardware appliance (inline) |
| Setup time | 5 minutes per server | Weeks to months (procurement + installation) |
| Hardware required | None | Dedicated appliance ($50K-$500K+) |
| Cloud infrastructure | AWS, GCP, Azure, any cloud VM | Physical appliance only |
| Detection | ||
| Detection latency | 1-2 seconds, sliding-window baselines | Near real-time (inline inspection) |
| Per-server baselines | Dynamic per-node baselines | Aggregate perimeter baselines |
| Server-side PCAP | Automatic PCAP on every attack | No server-side capture |
| Mitigation | ||
| Auto-mitigation | 4-tier escalation: local > FlowSpec > RTBH > scrubbing | Inline scrubbing at wire speed |
| Cloud scrubbing integration | Cloudflare, OVH, Hetzner, DO, Vultr, Linode | A10 ecosystem |
| BGP adapters | ExaBGP, GoBGP, BIRD 2, FRR, Cloudflare, Radware, F5, webhook | BGP integration available |
| Alerting & Integrations | ||
| Alert channels | Slack, Discord, PagerDuty, OpsGenie, Telegram, SMS, email, Teams | SNMP, syslog, email |
| Web dashboard | Modern web dashboard | A10 aGalaxy management console |
| Pricing | ||
| Starting cost | $9.99/node/month ($7.99 annual) | $50K-$500K+ (appliance CapEx) |
| Pricing model | OpEx, per-node, public pricing | CapEx hardware + annual licensing |
| Free trial | 14-day free trial, no credit card | No public trial |
Who each tool serves
Different tools for different deployment models
Thunder TPS and Flowtriq serve different segments. The right choice depends on your infrastructure, budget, and operational model.
Flowtriq works well for
Hosting providers, ISPs, game server operators, cloud-hosted infrastructure, multi-site deployments, operators who need per-server visibility and PCAP forensics, teams using upstream cloud scrubbing or BGP-based mitigation, and anyone who wants to be live in 5 minutes rather than 5 months.
Thunder TPS works well for
Large data center operators who need inline hardware scrubbing at the perimeter, organizations with existing A10 ADC infrastructure and established A10 relationships, environments where all traffic passes through a single data center edge, and operators who need multi-Tbps on-premise scrubbing capacity.
Use both together
The strongest deployment layers Thunder TPS at the data center perimeter for inline scrubbing with Flowtriq agents on servers for per-node visibility. Thunder TPS handles volumetric scrubbing at the edge. Flowtriq adds per-server baselines, below-threshold attack detection, and server-side PCAP that perimeter appliances cannot see.
Flowtriq as A10 alternative
If your mitigation relies on upstream scrubbing, BGP RTBH, or FlowSpec rather than on-premise inline hardware, Flowtriq provides faster per-server detection, 4-tier auto-mitigation escalation, PCAP forensics, and modern integrations at a fraction of the cost of a Thunder TPS deployment.
Common questions
A10 Networks alternatives: FAQ
Getting started
Deploy Flowtriq in
5 minutes
Whether you are adding Flowtriq alongside existing A10 infrastructure or evaluating it as a standalone detection and mitigation platform, the install is the same: one command, no appliances, no network changes.