CISO Tribune

Vendor comparison · 2 companies

A10 Networks vs F5

A10 Networks sells security solutions, infrastructure solutions, and centralized management and automation solutions for applications and networks. F5 sells the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP), which F5 describes as keeping applications and APIs fast, available, and secure across complex environments. CISO Tribune files both under API security. This page sets the two records side by side: what each sells, where it is based, who owns and funds it, the customers it names and its recent news, each fact numbered to its source.

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  • A10 Networks
  • F5
A10 Networks vs F5: Products, Customers and Funding Compared
A10 NetworksA10 Networks sells security solutions, infrastructure solutions, and centralized management and automation solutions for applications and networks.a10networks.comF5F5 sells the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP), which F5 describes as keeping applications and APIs fast, available, and secure across complex environments.f5.com
What it sells
  • ThreatX by A10 Networks[3][5]Web application protection platform.
  • TrojAI by A10 Networks[3][5]AI Guardrails and Red Teaming.
  • A10 Defend DDoS Mitigator[5]DDoS mitigation with intelligent automation.
  • A10 Defend DDoS Orchestrator[5]DDoS defense monitoring, orchestration and management.
  • A10 Thunder® ADC[4]Application delivery controller and load balancer.
  • A10 Thunder® CGN[4]Carrier-grade NAT, IPv4 preservation and IPv6 migration.
  • A10 Thunder® CFW[4]Consolidated network security platform.
  • A10 Control[3][4][6]Centralized management, control and analytics platform for A10 solutions.
  • F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP)[1]A platform that keeps applications and APIs fast, available, and secure across complex environments.
  • F5 Insight for ADSP[9]Observability and fleet management for ops teams.
  • F5 AI Security Platform[10]A platform that covers AI application security and AI workforce security.
  • F5 Distributed Cloud App Connect[12]Connects applications, clusters, and services across clouds, data centers, and remote sites.
  • BIG-IP Container Ingress Services[14]Lets teams manage BIG-IP from Kubernetes or OpenShift.
Categories
Headquarters
San Jose, United States[2]Seattle, United States[3]
Founded
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Ownership and funding
Public (NYSE: ATEN)[2][3][6][10]Public (NASDAQ: FFIV)[2][4][5][7][17]
Named customers
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Recent news
  • August 13, 2026A10 Networks announced general availability of the A10 AI Gateway, a control plane for routing, cost management and governance across AI agents, applications and LLMs.[9]
  • June 15, 2026A10 Networks announced it has acquired TrojAI, an AI security company focused on securing, testing and governing AI applications and agentic workflows.[10]
  • June 22, 2026F5 introduced its AI Security Platform and announced the acquisition of SurePath AI as part of the launch.[17]
G2 and Gartner Peer Insights
  • G2: Not stated on its pages
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
  • G2: Not stated on its pages
  • Gartner Peer Insights: listed, seen November 4, 2026[5]
Who it fits
From its own pages, A10 Networks sells to enterprises, service providers, and government organizations. Its pages say customers range from Fortune 500 enterprises to service providers and government agencies. Its mission names enterprises and service providers building business-critical networks and applications. Thunder ADC is described as providing application delivery services across hardware appliances, virtual machines, bare metal, containers, and public cloud environments.From its own pages, F5 sells mainly to organisations that run applications across multiple clouds, on-premises data centers, and edge sites. F5 addresses DevOps teams and ops teams that want network observability and control over their applications. F5 sells its Diameter products to service providers and mobile operators. F5 names customers such as a medical organization, a European asset manager, and a national public safety technology agency. F5 positions its AI security offerings for organisations that need to govern workforce AI usage across users, agents, and third-party services.
Last verified
November 9, 2026September 27, 2026

Where they overlap

  • A10 Networks and F5 are both filed under API security.
  • Both are headquartered in the United States.
  • Both are public companies.

Where they differ, field by field

  • A10 Networks's primary category is DDoS protection; F5's is WAF and WAAP.
  • A10 Networks lists ThreatX by A10 Networks, TrojAI by A10 Networks, A10 Defend DDoS Mitigator, A10 Defend DDoS Orchestrator, A10 Thunder® ADC and 3 more. F5 lists F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP), F5 Insight for ADSP, F5 AI Security Platform, F5 Distributed Cloud App Connect and BIG-IP Container Ingress Services.
  • A10 Networks is headquartered in San Jose, United States. F5 is headquartered in Seattle, United States.
  • A10 Networks is a public company listed on NYSE as ATEN. F5 is a public company listed on NASDAQ as FFIV.

What it sells: A10 Networks

What A10 Thunder® ADC does[4]
A10 Thunder® ADC is described as a high-performance application delivery controller and advanced load balancer. Thunder ADC provides consistent application delivery services across hardware appliances, virtual machines, bare metal, containers, and public cloud environments.

What it sells: F5

What F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP) does[1]
F5 offers ADSP through term subscriptions, the Flex Consumption Plan (FCP), and perpetual licensing. F5 says its security offering covers sensitive data, apps, and APIs on a single platform.
What F5 Insight for ADSP does[9]
F5 Insight for ADSP enables ops teams to find answers more quickly, optimize deployments, and execute updates faster. Guided workflows distribute and install software patches, updates, and upgrades across an entire fleet in parallel. Deployment is possible in AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and others, and in on-prem or fully air-gapped environments.
What F5 AI Security Platform does[10]
The F5 AI Security Platform helps teams operationalize AI governance with customizable policy enforcement and auditability for every model, user, and agent action. A continuous loop of testing and runtime protection secures deployed AI systems. Workforce AI usage is discovered, classified, and governed across users, agents, and third-party services.
What F5 Distributed Cloud App Connect does[12]
F5 Distributed Cloud App Connect securely connects applications, clusters, and services across any cloud provider, on-premises data center, or remote site. DevOps teams get network observability and control.
What BIG-IP Container Ingress Services does[14]
BIG-IP Container Ingress Services (CIS) lets users manage an F5 BIG-IP device from Kubernetes or OpenShift using either environment's native CLI/API. CIS watches the Kubernetes API for specially formatted resources and updates the BIG-IP system configuration accordingly. F5 describes Container Ingress Services as free and open-source.

Questions about A10 Networks and F5

What do A10 Networks and F5 sell?
A10 Networks sells ThreatX by A10 Networks, TrojAI by A10 Networks, A10 Defend DDoS Mitigator, A10 Defend DDoS Orchestrator, A10 Thunder® ADC and 3 more. F5 sells F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP), F5 Insight for ADSP, F5 AI Security Platform, F5 Distributed Cloud App Connect and BIG-IP Container Ingress Services.
Are A10 Networks and F5 in the same category?
They share API security. A10 Networks's primary category is DDoS protection and F5's is WAF and WAAP.
Where are A10 Networks and F5 headquartered?
A10 Networks is headquartered in San Jose, United States. F5 is headquartered in Seattle, United States.
Who owns A10 Networks and F5?
A10 Networks is a public company listed on NYSE as ATEN. F5 is a public company listed on NASDAQ as FFIV.
Who are A10 Networks and F5 sold to?
From its own pages, A10 Networks sells to enterprises, service providers, and government organizations. From its own pages, F5 sells mainly to organisations that run applications across multiple clouds, on-premises data centers, and edge sites.
What have A10 Networks and F5 announced recently?
August 13, 2026: A10 Networks announced general availability of the A10 AI Gateway, a control plane for routing, cost management and governance across AI agents, applications and LLMs. June 22, 2026: F5 introduced its AI Security Platform and announced the acquisition of SurePath AI as part of the launch.

About A10 Networks

A10 Networks sells security solutions, infrastructure solutions, and centralized management and automation solutions for applications and networks. A10 Networks says its products are for enterprises, service providers, and government organizations.[4]

On security, A10 Networks says AI is changing how applications connect and communicate, and that traffic patterns are becoming more unpredictable, introducing risks such as DDoS attacks, API abuse, inference manipulation, and shadow AI. A10 Networks says it delivers protection across network and application layers and APIs, defending against DDoS attacks, bots, infiltration, exfiltration, prompt injection, and more. A10 Networks says its security includes unified web application and API security, DNS firewall, DDoS protection, and AI guardrails.[1]

The security product line includes TrojAI by A10 Networks, described as AI Guardrails and Red Teaming, and ThreatX by A10 Networks, described as a web application protection platform. A10 Defend DDoS Mitigator provides DDoS mitigation with intelligent automation, powered by advanced machine learning. A10 Defend DDoS Detector provides precise, highly scalable network-wide anomaly detection. A10 Defend Threat Control is a proactive DDoS attack intelligence SaaS platform. A10 Defend DDoS Orchestrator covers DDoS defense monitoring, orchestration and management. A10 Defend Next-Gen WAF is an integrated application delivery and web application firewall.[5]

On the infrastructure side, A10 Thunder® ADC is a high-performance application delivery controller and advanced load balancer. Thunder ADC provides consistent application delivery services across hardware appliances, virtual machines, bare metal, containers, and public cloud environments. Thunder ADC uses advanced Layer 4-7 load balancing, customizable health checks, and global server load balancing (GSLB) to help keep applications available across data centers and cloud environments. Thunder ADC improves application performance with capabilities including SSL/TLS offload, TCP optimization, RAM caching, compression, and intelligent load balancing.[1][4]

A10 Thunder® CGN is advanced carrier-grade NAT, IPv4 preservation and IPv6 migration. A10 Thunder® CFW is a consolidated network security platform with stateful firewall, IPsec VPN, CGN, ADC, SSLi and secure web gateway. SSL Insight (SSLi®) in Thunder CFW provides TLS/SSL decryption for real-time visibility into encrypted traffic.[4]

A10 Control provides centralized management for A10's security and infrastructure solutions. A10 Networks says it enables intelligent analytics, traffic visibility, and streamlined operations across any environment. A10 Control consolidates existing A10 Harmony Controller and aGalaxy capabilities and more.[4]

A10 Networks describes its Cloud Access Proxy (CAP) as a complete enterprise solution to help organizations optimize the performance and security of their SaaS applications and provide visibility into branch offices and the cloud. Tenant Access Control prevents data theft between sanctioned and unsanctioned SaaS tenant accounts. URL Filtering provides traffic categorization and protection from web threats.[7]

A10 Networks says 7,700+ businesses use its products, from Fortune 500 enterprises to service providers and government agencies. Turk Telekom, Segpay, Travelex and Uber are named as A10 Networks customers. Dhrupad Trivedi joined A10 Networks in December 2019 as president and chief executive officer. A10 Networks states its mission is to help enterprises and service providers build business-critical networks and applications that are secure, available, and efficient.[8]

A10 Networks on the record

Sources

A10 Networks full record

  1. [1]a10networks.comA10 Networks · a10networks.com · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]DefaultA10 Networks · investors.a10networks.com · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]A10 Networks: Enterprise Security & Infrastructure SolutionsA10 Networks · undated page, accessed October 23, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]A10 Products | Enterprise Security & InfrastructureA10 Networks · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]A10 Security Products | A10 NetworksA10 Networks · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]A10 Thunder ADC: Application Delivery & Load BalancingA10 Networks · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]Cloud Access Proxy Solution | A10 NetworksA10 Networks · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Leadership Team | A10 NetworksA10 Networks · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]A10 Networks Launches A10 AI Gateway, an Intelligent Control Plane for All AI OperationsA10 Networks · published August 13, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]A10 Networks Acquires TrojAI Inc., Expanding AI RoadmapA10 Networks · published June 15, 2026 · Tier A

F5 full record

  1. [1]f5.comF5 · f5.com · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]Earnings q3 fy26F5 · f5.com · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]otcmarkets.comF5, Inc. via SEC EDGAR (Form 10-K) · otcmarkets.com · published November 25, 2025 · Tier A
  4. [4]Enterprise Application Security and Delivery Solutions | F5F5 · undated page, accessed October 25, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]F5 Reviews, Ratings & Features 2026 | Gartner Peer InsightsGartner Peer Insights · undated page, accessed October 25, 2026 · Tier C
  6. [6]Bot and Risk Management | F5F5 · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]Hybrid Multicloud App Security & Delivery for the AI Era | F5F5 · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Unified Management and Automation | F5F5 · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]Operational Intelligence and Response for F5 ADSP | F5F5 · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]F5 AI Security Platform | F5F5 · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]Hybrid Multicloud Network Management Platform | F5F5 · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]Distributed application delivery solutions | F5F5 · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  13. [13]F5 Distributed Cloud Synthetic Monitoring | F5F5 · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  14. [14]BIG-IP Container Ingress Services | F5F5 · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  15. [15]BIG-IP Diameter Traffic Manager | F5F5 · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  16. [16]NFV Packaged Solutions | F5F5 · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  17. [17]F5 launches AI Security Platform to put security leaders in control of enterprise AI riskF5 · published June 22, 2026 · Tier A

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