KuppingerCole recognizes F5 as overall market leader in WAAP

As API-driven, distributed architectures proliferate, the job of protecting web applications and APIs that power them has become much more complex. Enter web application and API protection (WAAP) solutions. The complexity of modern, AI-powered apps and infrastructure continues to evolve, making WAAP solutions more critical to protecting the healthcare, finance, and ecommerce web applications we rely on every day.

WAAP solutions are a natural evolution of web application firewalls (WAFs). WAAP takes security to the next level, while reducing overall complexity and improving situational awareness of an organization’s security posture. In addition to distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) protection, API discovery, and bot management, many WAAP offerings tap into the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to deliver real-time visibility, plus behavioral and threat insights in these complex app scenarios—helping to improve detection and response. 

Driven by more sophisticated automated and AI threats, ever-changing regulatory policies, and the need to reduce operational complexity, the WAAP market is forecasted to reach $5.1 billion by 2028, up from 2.2 billion in 2023, according to IDC.¹ With more than 58% of organizations citing API sprawl as a significant pain point, now’s the time to protect the apps and APIs that deliver increasingly critical digital experiences your customers expect.

F5 has been at the forefront of application delivery and security, defending and optimizing digital experiences across industries, for over 25 years. This is why KuppingerCole recognized F5 as a leader in WAAP in its 2025 Leadership Compass report.

The KuppingerCole Leadership Compass analyzes vendors that offer solutions protecting web applications, APIs, and associated data using WAAP solutions. The analysis dives deep into WAAP deployment models across industries and architecture types, looking at the WAAP market as an evolved segment of traditional WAF technologies. 

The 2025 Leadership Compass WAAP report recognizes F5 as a leader in four categories:

1. Overall leadership: This category combines vendor ratings for product leadership, innovation leadership, and market leadership. The overall rating is a compilation of all-around functionality, market presence, and financial stability.

   
   KuppingerCole’s overall leadership category
    

2. Product leadership: This category measures the completeness of required WAAP features based on the study’s methodology.

   
   KuppingerCole’s product leadership category
    

3. Innovation leadership: This category looks at vendors that are delivering cutting-edge products, and measures innovation in the context of customer requests and the ability to drive technical changes in the market by anticipating what will be needed in the months and years ahead.

   
   KuppingerCole’s innovation leadership category
    

4. Market leadership: This category is an amalgamation of each vendor’s number and geographical distribution of customers, size of deployments and services, size of geographic distribution of the partner ecosystem, and financial health.

   
   KuppingerCole’s market leadership category

In addition to F5’s standard WAF capabilities, KuppingerCole noted that F5’s current WAAP portfolio incorporates secure DNS, client-side defense, web application scanning, and an AI-assistant that provides actionable insights and facilitates remediation efforts.

The Leadership Compass also highlighted F5’s API protection capabilities. “F5 WAAP implements sophisticated API security measures to protect against the OWASP Top 10 for APIs and includes automatic API discovery and API testing functionalities,” the report says.

The report called out F5’s excellent partner ecosystem, comprehensive protection for mobile apps and platforms, and strong integration capabilities with third-party solutions as core F5 strengths. It also lauded better automation and context-aware threat management powered by agentic AI as a forward-looking feature of the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform.

“F5 WAAP is an excellent option for large enterprises looking for a WAAP solution,” the report says. “Its versatility across deployment models and integration with major platforms make it a strong candidate for enterprises with complex, multi-cloud environments.”

We’re delighted to receive this recognition for our WAAP leadership. Ensuring that applications are delivered reliably and securely has been F5’s core focus for more than 25 years. As threat surfaces expand and AI drives more complexity into infrastructure management, F5 will stay steadfast in our commitment to securing every app and API wherever they’re deployed.

Download the report to learn more about why KuppingerCole chose F5 as a WAAP leader.