# F5 BIG-IP alternatives: what AI models name instead, October 2026

IT AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition. 208 of the 252 answers in the 1 category where F5 BIG-IP holds a standing named it neither first nor as an alternative; these are the first choices those answers made. Page: https://it-ai-index.com/vendors/f5-big-ip/alternatives/

## Named instead, most often (every category and segment added)

- HAProxy: 40
- NGINX: 25
- Progress Kemp LoadMaster: 22
- Cloudflare Load Balancing: 16
- AWS Elastic Load Balancing: 14
- Kemp LoadMaster: 7

## Load balancers

**Small business**: 84 of 84 answers did not name F5 BIG-IP (F5 BIG-IP is #13 of 13 at 0%).

- HAProxy: first choice in 18 of those 84
- NGINX: first choice in 15 of those 84
- Cloudflare Load Balancing: first choice in 11 of those 84
- AWS Elastic Load Balancing: first choice in 8 of those 84
- Kemp LoadMaster: first choice in 7 of those 84
- Progress Kemp LoadMaster: first choice in 7 of those 84
- Traefik: first choice in 6 of those 84
- AWS Application Load Balancer: first choice in 4 of those 84

**Mid-market**: 75 of 84 answers did not name F5 BIG-IP (F5 BIG-IP is #13 of 13 at 0%).

- HAProxy: first choice in 18 of those 75
- Progress Kemp LoadMaster: first choice in 13 of those 75
- NGINX: first choice in 8 of those 75
- AWS Elastic Load Balancing: first choice in 6 of those 75
- Cloudflare Load Balancing: first choice in 2 of those 75
- AWS Application Load Balancer: first choice in 1 of those 75
- Application Load Balancer: first choice in 1 of those 75
- Azure Application Gateway: first choice in 1 of those 75

**Enterprise**: 49 of 84 answers did not name F5 BIG-IP (F5 BIG-IP is #1 of 10 at 40%).

- HAProxy: first choice in 4 of those 49
- Cloudflare Load Balancing: first choice in 3 of those 49
- F5: first choice in 3 of those 49
- Loadbalancer.org Enterprise ADC: first choice in 3 of those 49
- F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager: first choice in 2 of those 49
- NGINX: first choice in 2 of those 49
- Progress Kemp LoadMaster: first choice in 2 of those 49
- AWS Application Load Balancer: first choice in 1 of those 49

Published under CC BY 4.0. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.