CISO Tribune

Vendor comparison · 2 companies

F5 vs Fastly

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. Fastly is an edge cloud platform that helps companies deliver fast, secure, and reliable digital experiences. CISO Tribune files both under WAF and WAAP and 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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  • F5
  • Fastly
F5 vs Fastly: Products, Customers and Funding Compared
F5F5 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.comFastlyFastly is an edge cloud platform that helps companies deliver fast, secure, and reliable digital experiences.fastly.com
What it sells
  • 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.
  • Next-Gen WAF[2][9][11]A web application firewall that monitors suspicious and anomalous web traffic.
  • DDoS Protection[5][6][10]Real-time visibility into and defense against common DDoS attacks.
  • API Discovery[10]A continuously-updating record of incoming API requests.
  • Managed Security[5][11]24/7 expert-managed WAF, bot, and DDoS threat protection.
  • AI Runtime Control[7][12]A unified control plane between applications and AI models.
  • Managed CDN[5]Fastly's managed cloud CDN deployed inside the customer's own network.
  • Professional Services[5]Expert help to migrate or optimize a delivery service.
Categories
Headquarters
Seattle, United States[3]San Francisco, United States[4]
Founded
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Ownership and funding
Public (NASDAQ: FFIV)[2][4][5][7][17]Public (NYSE: FSLY)[1][8]
Named customers
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Recent news
  • June 22, 2026F5 introduced its AI Security Platform and announced the acquisition of SurePath AI as part of the launch.[17]
  • September 28, 2026Comcast and Fastly are working with NBCUniversal to run Fastly delivery software on Comcast's network for live streaming events on Peacock.[18]
  • September 21, 2026Fastly announced AI Runtime Control, AI Firewall and new API Security capabilities aimed at giving organizations visibility and control across their AI systems.[7]
  • June 10, 2026Fastly and Skyfire announced a partnership under which Skyfire integrated its identity and payment-backed credentials into Fastly's edge cloud platform.[19]
G2 and Gartner Peer Insights
  • G2: Not stated on its pages
  • Gartner Peer Insights: listed, seen November 4, 2026[5]
  • G2: listed, seen November 3, 2026[8]
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
Who it fits
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.From its own pages, Fastly sells mainly to developers, security teams, and digital businesses. Fastly says its security products protect applications, APIs, and microservices, wherever they live. Fastly says it powers media brands with an open edge cloud platform for live and on-demand entertainment. Fastly Next-Gen WAF can be deployed in three different ways, including directly on customers' own web servers. Managed Security Professional is sold to customers that purchase Fastly Full-Site Delivery and Network Services Enterprise Support, along with either Next-Gen WAF or Edge Rate Limiting.
Last verified
September 27, 2026September 27, 2026

Where they overlap

  • WAF and WAAP is the primary category of both F5 and Fastly; both are also filed under API security.
  • Both are headquartered in the United States.
  • Both are public companies.

Where they differ, field by field

  • Fastly is also filed under DDoS protection and Bot and abuse management.
  • 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. Fastly lists Next-Gen WAF, DDoS Protection, API Discovery, Managed Security, AI Runtime Control and 2 more.
  • F5 is headquartered in Seattle, United States. Fastly is headquartered in San Francisco, United States.
  • F5 is a public company listed on NASDAQ as FFIV. Fastly is a public company listed on NYSE as FSLY.

How they differ

F5 is headquartered in Seattle and trades on NASDAQ as FFIV, while Fastly is headquartered in San Francisco and trades on NYSE as FSLY. CISO Tribune files both companies under WAF and WAAP as the primary category, and files each under API security as well. CISO Tribune also files Fastly under DDoS protection and Bot and abuse management.

F5 sells the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP), offered through term subscriptions, the Flex Consumption Plan (FCP), and perpetual licensing. F5 also sells F5 Insight for ADSP for observability and fleet management, F5 Distributed Cloud App Connect, and BIG-IP Container Ingress Services for managing BIG-IP from Kubernetes or OpenShift. Fastly sells Next-Gen WAF, DDoS Protection, API Discovery, and Managed Security, which it describes as 24/7 expert-managed WAF, bot, and DDoS threat protection. Fastly also sells Managed CDN, which is deployed inside the customer's own network, and Professional Services.

Both have AI security products: F5 sells the F5 AI Security Platform, covering AI application security and AI workforce security, and Fastly sells AI Runtime Control, a control plane between applications and AI models. F5 introduced its AI Security Platform and announced the acquisition of SurePath AI on June 22, 2026. Fastly announced AI Runtime Control, AI Firewall and new API Security capabilities on September 21, 2026. On September 28, 2026, Comcast and Fastly were reported to be working with NBCUniversal to run Fastly delivery software on Comcast's network for live streaming events on Peacock. F5 names customers including a medical organization, a European asset manager, and a national public safety technology agency.

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.

What it sells: Fastly

What Next-Gen WAF does[2][9][11]
Fastly Next-Gen WAF protects, in real-time, against attacks directed at the applications and origin servers that customers specify. Next-Gen WAF can be deployed in three different ways. Next-Gen WAF continues to be powered by Signal Sciences technology.
What DDoS Protection does[5][6][10]
Fastly DDoS Protection provides real-time visibility into and defense against common Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. Fastly describes it as keeping customers performant and available without any required configuration.
What Managed Security does[5][11]
Fastly describes Managed Security as 24/7 expert-managed WAF, bot, and DDoS threat protection. Managed Security Professional provides continuous monitoring of included Fastly security products and proactive action by Fastly in the event of an identified security incident. Managed Security Professional includes enhanced access to Fastly's Customer Security Operations Center (CSOC).
What AI Runtime Control does[7][12]
ARC is a unified control plane that sits between applications and AI models, giving centralized visibility, governance, and control over all AI traffic. AI Firewall is a security module within ARC that protects AI-powered applications from prompt injection attacks with near-zero latency impact.

Questions about F5 and Fastly

What do F5 and Fastly sell?
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. Fastly sells Next-Gen WAF, DDoS Protection, API Discovery, Managed Security, AI Runtime Control and 2 more.
Are F5 and Fastly in the same category?
Yes. WAF and WAAP is the primary category of both on CISO Tribune.
Where are F5 and Fastly headquartered?
F5 is headquartered in Seattle, United States. Fastly is headquartered in San Francisco, United States.
Who owns F5 and Fastly?
F5 is a public company listed on NASDAQ as FFIV. Fastly is a public company listed on NYSE as FSLY.
Who are F5 and Fastly sold to?
From its own pages, F5 sells mainly to organisations that run applications across multiple clouds, on-premises data centers, and edge sites. From its own pages, Fastly sells mainly to developers, security teams, and digital businesses.
What have F5 and Fastly announced recently?
June 22, 2026: F5 introduced its AI Security Platform and announced the acquisition of SurePath AI as part of the launch. September 28, 2026: Comcast and Fastly are working with NBCUniversal to run Fastly delivery software on Comcast's network for live streaming events on Peacock.

About F5

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.[1][6]

F5 says its security offering covers sensitive data, apps, and APIs on a single platform. F5 offers ADSP through term subscriptions, the Flex Consumption Plan (FCP), and perpetual licensing. F5 says it can safeguard sensitive data from quantum risks with NIST-standardized post-quantum cryptography. F5 says it hardens its own code with frontier AI models and blocks zero-day and emerging AI-driven threats at runtime.

F5 sells management and automation solutions for BIG-IP and NGINX that provide central management, observability, and automation. F5 says its ADSP management and automation solutions offer end-to-end visibility, intuitive management workflows, and intelligent automation. F5 services for application delivery and security can be managed and provisioned with Ansible and Terraform.[8]

F5 Insight for ADSP enables ops teams to focus efforts where they are most needed, find answers more quickly, optimize deployments, and execute updates faster. F5 Insight uses open-source tools including custom OpenTelemetry resources, VictoriaMetrics database, and a Grafana instance. Users can ask questions about virtual server status, iRule resource use, or security configurations in plain conversational English. Teams can identify expiring certificates, inventory cryptographic assets, and track PQC readiness. Guided workflows distribute and install software patches, updates, and upgrades across an entire fleet in parallel. F5 says this observability and fleet management can be deployed in AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and others, and in on-prem or fully air-gapped environments.[9]

F5 inspects traffic for bots, aggregators, and other anomalies using behavioral, network, and environmental client-side signals. F5 says it distinguishes trusted humans, bots, and agents from malicious activity through real-time behavioral analysis. F5 BIG-IP provides a native module for routing traffic to Bot Defense. Bot Defense can be deployed as SaaS in front of apps, and traffic from Distributed Cloud can be directed to Bot Defense. F5 offers real-time detection that stops malicious bots and AI agents and protects apps, APIs, and user experiences.[6]

The F5 AI Security Platform helps teams operationalize AI governance with customizable policy enforcement and auditability for every model, user, and agent action. F5 applies a continuous loop of testing and runtime protection to deployed AI systems. F5 discovers, classifies, and governs workforce AI usage across users, agents, and third-party services. F5 monitors shadow AI usage, sanctioned AI tools, and MCP servers across enterprise workflows. F5 says AI security can operate in fully isolated environments with no external connectivity.[10]

F5 says multicloud networking from F5 helps scale and automate networks so that applications are fast and reliable. F5 Distributed Cloud App Connect securely connects applications, clusters, and services across any cloud provider, on-premises data center, or remote site, giving DevOps teams network observability and control. F5 Distributed Cloud organizes network, traffic optimization, and security services in a single console. F5 Distributed Cloud Services support service discovery and service mesh integrations including Consul, Kubernetes, DNS, Istio, and Linkerd. Synthetic Monitoring from F5 Distributed Cloud sources data from global regions for analytics and insights.[11][12][13]

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. F5 IngressLink combines BIG-IP, Container Ingress Services (CIS), and NGINX Ingress Controller to deliver unified app services for modern applications in Kubernetes environments. BIG-IP Diameter Traffic Management enables service providers to manage network complexity with context-aware routing, secure roaming, and integration of Diameter and legacy elements. The F5 Diameter Firewall is compliant with GSMA-FS-19 Diameter Security requirements.[14][15]

A medical organization deployed F5 Workforce AI Security to bring ungoverned AI use under protection and oversight and to secure sensitive patient data. A European asset manager deployed F5 solutions for S3 data delivery for AI model training. A national public safety technology agency uses F5 BIG-IP r4600 appliances in front of its storage to secure and load balance its ingestion path.[1][8][10][11][13][14][15][16]

F5 on the record

Sources

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

Fastly full record

  1. [1]Fastly Announces Acquisition of GlitchFastly via Business Wire · businesswire.com · published May 19, 2022 · Tier A
  2. [2]Web application api protectionFastly · fastly.com · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]SecureFastly · fastly.com · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]Fsly 20241231Fastly, Inc. via SEC EDGAR (Form 10-K) · sec.gov · published February 25, 2025 · Tier A
  5. [5]Powering the best of the internet | FastlyFastly · undated page, accessed October 25, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]Fastly Edge Cloud Platform | FastlyFastly · undated page, accessed October 25, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]Fastly Launches AI Firewall and AI Runtime Control to Secure and Scale AIFastly, Inc. (Business Wire) · published September 21, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Fastly Content Delivery Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2G2 · undated page, accessed October 25, 2026 · Tier C
  9. [9]Fastly Next-Gen WAF | Fastly ProductsFastly · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]Security | Fastly DocumentationFastly · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]Managed Security Professional | Fastly ProductsFastly · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]Fastly ARC | AI Runtime Control | FastlyFastly · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  13. [13]Compute | Fastly ProductsFastly · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  14. [14]Products | Fastly DocumentationFastly · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  15. [15]Platform TLS | Fastly ProductsFastly · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  16. [16]Origin Inspector | Fastly ProductsFastly · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  17. [17]Domain Research API | FastlyFastly · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  18. [18]Comcast and Fastly’s New Content Delivery Model Powers Highest Quality Experience for Peacock’s Biggest Live EventsFastly · published September 28, 2026 · Tier A
  19. [19]Fastly and Skyfire Partner to Enable Trusted Agentic Commerce with Verified Identity at the EdgeFastly · published June 10, 2026 · Tier A

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