Methods, systems, and computer-readable mediums for managing forwarding equivalence class (FEC) hierarchies, including obtaining a forwarding equivalence class (FEC) hierarchy; making a first determination that a first hardware component supports a maximum levels of indirection (MLI) quantity; making a second determination that the FEC hierarchy has a hierarchy height; based on the first determination and the second determination, performing a comparison between the MLI quantity and the hierarchy height to obtain a comparison result; and based on the comparison result, performing a FEC hierarchy action set.