F5 BIG-IP
Strongest at enterprise, contested with HAProxy. Ranked 98 of 98 for small business buyers.
The standing depends on who is buying. Every model is asked the same questions for each company size.
HAProxy is first at 19%.
HAProxy is first at 32%. 0 of 14 models made it the first choice when asked directly.
Ranked first, contested: HAProxy has 18%.
Why models recommend it
“I'd usually recommend F5 BIG-IP / F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform as the default choice”GPT-5.4 mini · Paraphrase question · first choice
“evaluate F5 BIG-IP. It has broad hybrid/multicloud capabilities, but I'd compare the required features, operating effort, and vendor quotes before choosing it.”GPT-6 Luna · Paraphrase question · alternative
“F5 BIG-IP (if budget allows) ... Considerations: Higher cost (~$47K median annual spend), more complex management”GLM 4.7 FlashX · Paraphrase question · alternative
“the best load balancer options typically include F5 BIG-IP, NGINX Plus, HAProxy, Citrix ADC, and Kemp LoadMaster”Mistral Small · Direct question · alternative
What gives them pause
“Critical zero-days exist in F5 BIG-IP APM, tracked as CVE-2026-94127, which allows unauthenticated remote code execution”Muse Glimmer 30B · Negative question · warning
“Avoid unless you need advanced ADC features and have dedicated security/ops teams.”Grok 4.20 · Negative question · warning
“out-of-support F5 BIG-IP / NetScaler hardware ... Why avoid:”Gemini 3.5 Flash · Negative question · warning
“What to Avoid on a Budget - F5 BIG-IP – High cost of entry”DeepSeek V4 Flash · Budget-constrained question · warning
Also on the shortlist
The products named in the same answers as F5 BIG-IP, over the 119 answers that named it, and how often each was the first choice instead.
| Product | Named together | Picked instead | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 93 | 22 | View → | |
| 84 | 12 | View → | |
| 58 | 5 | View → | |
| 58 | 0 | View → | |
| 45 | 2 | View → | |
| 44 | 1 | View → | |
| 33 | 1 | View → | |
| 31 | 4 | View → | |
| 29 | 2 | View → | |
| 26 | 10 | View → |
What the models named instead of F5 BIG-IP →
A side-by-side page exists where both products are among a category's top eight.
How this is measured
Fourteen AI models from 12 labs are asked the same buying questions six ways, for three company sizes. Standings refresh every edition.
Gane sells AI visibility software. No company can pay to change a result.
Read the method →Sources returned with these answers
Fourteen of the fourteen models returned a source list in this edition: five return the pages they cited and nine the search results they consulted. These counts come from 96 of the 119 answers that named F5 BIG-IP and are not a share of its labels.
Domains cited
No domain is on file for F5 BIG-IP, so its own site is not marked. Thirty-one were to the publisher's own pages (the Gane Index), which the models cite like any other source; they are not counted as a third party.
Pages cited
Pages are listed as the models cited them.
By model
| Model | First choice | Alternative | Mention | Warning | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 5 |
| Perplexity Sonar | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Grok 4.20 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 5 |
| Mistral Small | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 5 |
| Llama 4 Maverick | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | 0 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 6 |
| Kimi K2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 4 |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |