Think of F5 as:

• Cloudflare for enterprise applications – they make complex business software fast, secure, and always available across data centers and clouds.
• Like Palo Alto Networks, but for applications – they protect the software itself and manage its delivery, not just the network it runs on.

• BIG-IP Platform: This suite of hardware and software appliances provides advanced application delivery, intelligent load balancing, robust web application firewall (WAF) capabilities, and secure access management.
• NGINX Products: These software solutions, including NGINX Plus, offer high-performance web serving, reverse proxying, application load balancing, and API gateway functionalities, particularly for modern cloud-native and microservices architectures.
• F5 Distributed Cloud Services: A SaaS-based platform that delivers comprehensive security, networking, and application management services (such as WAF, bot defense, API security, and load balancing) across multi-cloud and edge environments.

F5 (symbol: FFIV) primarily sells its products and services to other companies (Business-to-Business, or B2B), rather than directly to individuals.

While F5 does not publicly disclose the names of specific major customers, as no single customer consistently accounts for 10% or more of its revenue, its customer base consists of a broad range of organizations across various sectors. The company serves enterprises, service providers, and government entities globally.

The primary categories of customers F5 serves include:

• Large Enterprises: These encompass a wide array of global corporations across diverse industries such as technology, retail, manufacturing, healthcare, and media. These organizations utilize F5's solutions for application security, delivery, and performance.
• Service Providers: This category includes telecommunication companies, internet service providers (ISPs), and cloud service providers who leverage F5's technology to deliver their own services securely and efficiently to their customers.
• Government Entities and Financial Institutions: F5 provides critical security and application delivery infrastructure to federal, state, and local government agencies, as well as to major banks, insurance companies, and other financial services firms, helping them secure sensitive data and ensure the availability of their mission-critical applications.

François Locoh-Donou, President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director

François Locoh-Donou joined F5 as President and CEO in April 2017 and has been instrumental in transforming the company into a software- and SaaS-first leader in multi-cloud application security and delivery. Prior to F5, he served as Chief Operating Officer at Ciena Corporation, a global networking solutions provider, where he also held various leadership positions in Product, Sales, and Marketing. He also held research and development roles at Photonetics, a French opto-electronics company. Locoh-Donou co-founded Cajou Espoir, a social enterprise cashew-processing facility in Togo that employs a significant number of women.

Cooper Werner, Chief Financial Officer

Cooper Werner was appointed Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of F5, effective in mid-November 2024, succeeding Frank Pelzer upon his retirement. Werner joined F5 in 2001 and has held various finance roles within the company, including Senior Vice President of Finance since 2012 and Vice President of Finance starting in 2008.

Tom Fountain, Chief Operating Officer

Tom Fountain serves as F5's Chief Operating Officer. In this role, he is responsible for driving operational velocity and advancing execution, productivity, and efficiency across the company. He also continues to oversee Global Services and leads F5's digital transformation efforts. Previously, he was F5's Executive Vice President of Global Services and Chief Strategy Officer.

Kunal Anand, Chief Technology and AI Officer

Kunal Anand holds the title of Chief Technology and AI Officer at F5. His responsibilities encompass F5's company-wide AI strategy, an expansion from his previous role as Chief Technology Officer.

Chad Whalen, Chief Revenue Officer

Chad Whalen is the Chief Revenue Officer at F5. In this position, he is responsible for driving revenue growth, with a particular focus on F5's software solutions, and executing the company's land-and-expand strategy globally. Prior to this role, he served as Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales.

The increasing adoption of cloud-native application services and open-source alternatives directly competes with F5's core offerings. Hyperscale cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP) provide their own integrated load balancing, API gateway, and Web Application Firewall (WAF) services that are often preferred for cloud-first deployments due to ease of integration and cost-effectiveness. Additionally, the proliferation of open-source and Kubernetes-native tools like Envoy, Istio, and various ingress controllers offer agile, lightweight alternatives for microservices architectures.

The growing adoption of Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) platforms represents another emerging threat. SASE architectures aim to converge networking and security functions into a single, cloud-delivered service. As enterprises consolidate their network and security infrastructure around SASE, these platforms are increasingly incorporating capabilities that could diminish the need for F5's specialized application security and access management solutions.

F5 (symbol: FFIV) operates in several significant addressable markets globally for its main products and services. These markets include Application Delivery Controllers (ADC), Application Security, and the broader Application Delivery Network (ADN) sector, as well as cloud management solutions.

• The global Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) market was valued at approximately USD 3.42 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach USD 5.26 billion by 2030, growing at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 8.98%. Another estimate placed the global ADC market size at USD 4.35 billion in 2024, with a projection to reach USD 8.46 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 12.9%. The market was also estimated at USD 3.9 billion in 2023 and is expected to reach USD 8.3 billion in 2028, with a CAGR of 16.4%. North America held the largest share of over 34% in the application delivery controller market in 2024.
• The global Application Security market size reached approximately USD 33.7 billion in 2024 and is expected to reach USD 55.0 billion by 2029, exhibiting a CAGR of 10.3%. Another source estimates the global application security market size at USD 7.57 billion in 2023, projected to reach USD 25.10 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 18.7%. A different report valued the global application security market at USD 10.4 billion in 2024, with an estimated growth to USD 34.8 billion by 2033, at a CAGR of 14.33%. North America currently dominates this market, holding a significant market share of 40.5% in 2024. F5's current cybersecurity portfolio addresses a global market segment estimated at USD 22.4 billion.
• The global Application Delivery Network (ADN) market is projected to grow from USD 9.9 billion in 2025 to USD 27.8 billion by 2035, with a CAGR of 10.9%.
• F5's cloud management solutions are positioned to capture a market segment estimated at USD 87.5 billion by 2025, within the global cloud infrastructure market, which is projected to reach USD 1,266.4 billion by 2028.

F5 (FFIV) is expected to drive future revenue growth over the next two to three years through several key areas:

1. Data Center Modernization and AI-Driven Infrastructure Demand: F5's systems revenue has shown significant growth, fueled by ongoing data center modernization efforts and the increasing demand for infrastructure to support Artificial Intelligence (AI) workloads. The company's solutions are crucial for high-performance networking and security required for both AI model training and inference, and F5 is leveraging technologies like NVIDIA BlueField-4 DPUs for gigascale AI infrastructure.
2. Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Adoption: The continued enterprise adoption of hybrid multi-cloud architectures is a significant and persistent demand driver for F5's platform. F5's offerings, including BIG-IP, NGINX, and Distributed Cloud services, enable customers to deploy, secure, and operate applications across various environments, from on-premises to public and hybrid clouds.
3. Transition to High-Margin Software and Subscription-Based Services: F5 is strategically shifting towards a higher-margin software and subscription-based revenue model. Analysts anticipate that this transition to recurring software and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) models will serve as a long-term catalyst for improved revenue predictability and expand profit margins. The growth in core SaaS and subscription-based software offerings is expected as the transition of legacy offerings is largely completed.
4. Product Refresh Cycles and Competitive Takeouts: A strong hardware product refresh cycle is contributing to F5's revenue growth, with a substantial portion of its installed base still utilizing legacy systems nearing their end-of-support. This, combined with successful competitive takeouts, is driving increased systems revenue.
5. Enhanced Security Offerings, Including AI Security: F5 is focusing on strengthening its security portfolio, including the launch of new AI and cloud security products. The acquisition of CalypsoAI is aimed at bolstering its advanced AI security capabilities, addressing the critical need for secure and scalable AI workflows in enterprises. This commitment to robust security solutions, particularly in the evolving AI landscape, is a key growth area.