Does built in DDoS protection really make a difference?

Many VPS providers are now offering protection, but for those who have suffered attacks and large traffic spikes,

have you seen a real difference, or do you still have to rely on other services?
would love to hear your experience

From my experience the protection most VPS give only stops the big traffic floodsand for that it works ok, but it does nothing for the http attacks that look like real users, and thats what usually takes a site down, also many cheap hosts just null route your ip when the attack is too big.
you still need Cloudflare in front for the http part, it helps but alone its not enough, depends what attack you get.

I think I've noticed a difference in my VPS protection, but for larger scale attacks I'd still want additional defense,

It does help, but not when there is a heavy attack.