CISO Tribune

Vendor comparison · 2 companies

Escape vs F5

Escape sells an offensive security platform that uses AI agents to discover, test and remediate vulnerabilities in engineering workflows. 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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  • Escape
  • F5
Escape vs F5: Products, Customers and Funding Compared
EscapeEscape sells an offensive security platform that uses AI agents to discover, test and remediate vulnerabilities in engineering workflows.escape.techF5F5 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
  • AI Pentesting[2][4][5][10]Continuous AI-powered pentesting that learns the customer's business and proves exploitability.
  • 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
Biarritz, France[3]Seattle, United States[3]
Founded
2020[1]Not stated on its pages
Ownership and funding
Privately held[4][9][11][12]Public (NASDAQ: FFIV)[2][4][5][7][17]
Named customers
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Recent news
  • March 10, 2026Escape announced an $18 million Series A round led by Balderton Capital, with Uncorrelated Ventures, IRIS and Y Combinator also participating.[8]
  • 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: listed, seen November 3, 2026[9]
  • 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, Escape sells mainly to security teams that want to replace legacy scanners and manual offensive security processes. Escape says its platform can replace manual pentest and bug bounty programs, and legacy DAST. Escape describes cloud and on-prem hybrid deployments so that internal applications can be assessed without giving external consultants or bug hunters access. Its compliance support names frameworks such as PCI-DSS, HIPAA, CRA, SOC 2 and ISO 27001.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
September 27, 2026September 27, 2026

Where they overlap

  • Escape and F5 are both filed under API security.

Where they differ, field by field

  • Escape's primary category is API security; F5's is WAF and WAAP.
  • Escape is also filed under Dynamic application security testing and External attack surface management.
  • Escape lists AI Pentesting. 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.
  • Escape is headquartered in Biarritz, France. F5 is headquartered in Seattle, United States.
  • Escape was founded in 2020.
  • Escape is privately held. F5 is a public company listed on NASDAQ as FFIV.

What it sells: Escape

What AI Pentesting does[2][4][5][10]
AI Pentesting delivers reports that auditors and engineers can act on. White-box pentesting is available, so it can run with the customer's source code. Escape converts previous AI pentesting findings into automated regression tests that run on every build with DAST.

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 Escape and F5

What do Escape and F5 sell?
Escape sells AI Pentesting. 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 Escape and F5 in the same category?
They share API security. Escape's primary category is API security and F5's is WAF and WAAP.
Where are Escape and F5 headquartered?
Escape is headquartered in Biarritz, France. F5 is headquartered in Seattle, United States.
When were Escape and F5 founded?
Escape was founded in 2020.
Who owns Escape and F5?
Escape is privately held. F5 is a public company listed on NASDAQ as FFIV.
Who are Escape and F5 sold to?
From its own pages, Escape sells mainly to security teams that want to replace legacy scanners and manual offensive security processes. From its own pages, F5 sells mainly to organisations that run applications across multiple clouds, on-premises data centers, and edge sites.
What have Escape and F5 announced recently?
March 10, 2026: Escape announced an $18 million Series A round led by Balderton Capital, with Uncorrelated Ventures, IRIS and Y Combinator also participating. June 22, 2026: F5 introduced its AI Security Platform and announced the acquisition of SurePath AI as part of the launch.

About Escape

Escape sells an offensive security platform that uses AI agents to discover, test and remediate vulnerabilities in engineering workflows. Escape says the platform replaces legacy scanners and manual offensive security processes.

Escape says it rebuilds offensive and application security from the ground up, covering business logic testing, agentic pentesting and code-to-cloud correlation. Escape states that all of this is always developed in-house.

Escape's AI Pentesting is continuous AI-powered pentesting that learns the customer's business, proves exploitability, and delivers reports that auditors and engineers can act on. White-box pentesting is available, so Escape's AI Pentesting can run with the customer's source code. Escape also converts previous AI pentesting findings into automated regression tests that run on every build with DAST.[5]

Escape's DAST is described as in-house and AI-powered, and it secures applications at the business logic level. Escape's testing covers workflows, access control and multi-step processes, not just payloads.

Escape's external network pentesting is continuous testing of everything reachable from the internet. Every host, port and exposed service is probed the way an attacker would, with proof of what is exploitable, followed by a retest. Escape's attack surface management discovers and validates exposure of modern applications, APIs and infrastructure from code to cloud. Escape discovers APIs and SPAs, not just DNS and ports, both internal and external.

Escape's documentation says its platform section applies across all Escape products: ASM, DAST and AI Pentesting. Customers can deploy a Private Location in their own network to discover and test internal applications. Private Locations enable scanning of applications that are not accessible from the public internet.[10]

On integrations, Escape sends assets directly to Wiz. Escape offers a public API, a CLI and an MCP Server, and says security gates run in CI/CD when scans are triggered on every push. Escape also has native integrations with AI-assisted IDEs such as Cursor, Claude Code and Gemini for remediation.

For compliance, Escape says PCI-DSS, HIPAA, CRA, SOC 2, ISO 27001 and 20+ other frameworks are natively supported. Escape maintains SOC 2 Type II certification. Escape uses proprietary AI models on AWS infrastructure, Microsoft Azure LLM Deployments and Cloudflare Workers AI Models.[2][5][6][7][13]

Escape on the record

Sources

Escape full record

  1. [1]Seed fundraising api securityEscape · escape.tech · published June 6, 2023 · Tier A
  2. [2]escape.techEscape · escape.tech · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]TermsEscape · escape.tech · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]Escape: AI-Powered Offensive Security PlatformEscape · undated page, accessed October 24, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]Continuous AI Pentesting Actionable for Engineers - EscapeEscape · undated page, accessed October 24, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]Escape Attack Surface ManagementEscape · undated page, accessed October 24, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]Escape - AI-powered DASTEscape · undated page, accessed October 24, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Escape raises $18M Series A to replace legacy scanners with AI agent-driven discovery, pentesting, and remediationEscape · published March 10, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]Escape Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features - G2G2 · undated page, accessed October 24, 2026 · Tier C
  10. [10]Platform - Escape DocumentationEscape · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]Private Locations - Escape DocumentationEscape · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]Internal Network Scanning - Escape DocumentationEscape · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  13. [13]Privacy & Security - Escape DocumentationEscape · undated page, accessed November 3, 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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