# F5 BIG-IP: how AI models rank it, November 2026

Gane Index, November 2026 Edition. Named in 46 judge labels across 2 categories by 14 of 14 models. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/f5-big-ip

## Standing by category

| Category | Share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [Load balancers](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/network/load-balancers/index.md) | 2% | 14 | 49% | 43 |
| [Web application firewalls](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/network/web-application-firewalls/index.md) | 0% | 77 | 67% | 3 |

## What the models said for it

- "I'd usually recommend F5 BIG-IP / F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform as the default choice" (GPT-5.4 mini, Load balancers)
- "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, Load balancers)
- "F5 BIG-IP (if budget allows) ... Considerations: Higher cost (~$47K median annual spend), more complex management" (GLM 4.7 FlashX, Load balancers)
- "the best load balancer options typically include F5 BIG-IP, NGINX Plus, HAProxy, Citrix ADC, and Kemp LoadMaster" (Mistral Small, Load balancers)

## And against it

- "Critical zero-days exist in F5 BIG-IP APM, tracked as CVE-2026-94127, which allows unauthenticated remote code execution" (Muse Glimmer 30B, Load balancers)
- "Avoid unless you need advanced ADC features and have dedicated security/ops teams." (Grok 4.20, Load balancers)
- "out-of-support F5 BIG-IP / NetScaler hardware ... Why avoid:" (Gemini 3.5 Flash, Load balancers)
- "What to Avoid on a Budget - F5 BIG-IP – High cost of entry" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, Load balancers)

## 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 |

## Sources returned with these answers

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named F5 BIG-IP, from 96 of the 119 answers that named it (only the models that return a source list).

### Domains cited

- loadbalancer.org: 39
- gane.ai/index: 31
- g2.com: 30
- f5.com: 29
- aws.amazon.com: 28
- kemptechnologies.com: 26
- peerspot.com: 21
- devopsschool.com: 20
- costbench.com: 18
- scmgalaxy.com: 17

### Pages cited

- https://loadbalancer.org/blog/whats-the-best-cloud-load-balancer: 17
- https://scmgalaxy.com/tutorials/top-10-load-balancers-features-pros-cons-comparison: 17
- https://www.gane.ai/index/it/network/load-balancers/enterprise: 16
- https://softwareadvice.com/load-balancing: 14
- https://capterra.com/load-balancing-software: 13
- https://devopsschool.com/blog/top-10-load-balancers-features-pros-cons-comparison: 13
- https://loadbalancer.org/blog/which-load-balancer-compare-f5-citrix-a10-radware-nginx-haproxy-avinetworks-kemp-loadbalancer: 13
- https://devopsschool.com/forum/d/5599-which-are-the-leading-load-balancers-and-how-do-they-differ: 12

## Record

- Method: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/methodology
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as Gane Index, November 2026 Edition, www.gane.ai/index/it.