F5 Distributed Cloud API Security vs Orca API Security: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)

F5 Distributed Cloud API Security

Mid-market and enterprise teams protecting APIs across multiple cloud providers should start here; F5 Distributed Cloud API Security bundles WAF, DDoS, and bot management in a single SaaS instance rather than forcing you to stitch together separate tools. The platform covers all three major clouds natively and scores notably on NIST PR.PS (platform security) and PR.IR (infrastructure resilience), meaning you're getting hardened delivery alongside threat prevention. Skip this if your API estate is small and on-premise; the SaaS-first architecture and multi-cloud pricing make more sense at scale where you'd otherwise be managing security controls across fragmented deployments.

Orca API Security

Mid-market and enterprise teams managing APIs across multiple cloud providers will get the most from Orca API Security because its agentless discovery actually finds shadow APIs that escape your infrastructure inventory, not just catalog what you already know about. The SideScanning out-of-band collection method means you're monitoring without touching production workloads, which matters when you're running on AWS, Azure, GCP, and Oracle simultaneously. Skip this if your primary concern is API runtime protection or threat response; Orca is built for asset discovery and drift detection, not blocking malicious API calls in flight.