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A10 Networks Lightning ADC vs NGINX Plus comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

A10 Networks Lightning ADC
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
17th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NGINX Plus
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
12th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of A10 Networks Lightning ADC is 2.2%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX Plus is 6.7%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NGINX Plus6.7%
A10 Networks Lightning ADC2.2%
Other91.1%
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

RONALDO DE MELO - PeerSpot reviewer
Sales Account Executive at l8
Efficient application security while optimizing connections
The initial setup is simple; it is not complex. The configuration itself is simple and can be done in a couple of hours. However, the migration of the system to A10 Networks takes longer due to critical applications. Clients prefer to move them one by one, which is why it takes a significant amount of time. The configuration itself is simple, especially for this application.
Nadeem-Inamdar - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Information Security Engineer at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
Advanced policies and web firewall have strengthened application protection and reduced attack traffic
There were some vulnerabilities in F5. They tried to fix it, but the fixes were not available at the time because they were zero days, so they attempted to fix it, but their support was not proper. Their support should be improved because sometimes features which we need for customization take time, and they are sometimes feasible and sometimes not feasible by the team, so their support and the engineering team should improve their product. I would like to see more features regarding customization which should be built into the application, and the tool optimization should be good, and the dashboard should be more crisp and clear.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It allows you to secure the application while balancing the connections for many other customers, reducing CPU usage and server load."
"Our clients appreciate that this is a security enabled solution."
"What I like about Lightning ADC, is that instead of having a big appliance sitting in front of the Kubernetes cluster, Lightning can pretty much go inside of Kubernetes."
"Our clients have reported an increase in revenue by around 5% on a year to year basis, since this solution was implemented."
"-"
"When you use NGINX, you have more options and power."
"​The flexibility of its modules allow it to be scalable.​"
"The load balancing module, which is equivalent to LTM, is the focus of the PSE, and so far, the features of both are identical, and I believe NGINX has more features for securing these services, but in terms of load balancing, both are massive solutions."
"It's lightweight software that can handle heavy loads efficiently."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is simple to configure."
"The best solution, by far, for web traffic control for things in production and just around the house."
"Recently, we’ve needed to deploy sites over a number of servers to balance the load, which was not only painless but also super valuable."
 

Cons

"The support from A10 should be improved."
"The documentation is pretty much closed and I think A10 crashes sometimes because initially, I was not able to set up Lightning ADC."
"We would like to see some improvement in the rapidity with which we can customize security facts within the solution."
"A10 documentation is not as open and accessible as AWS and Azure documentation is."
"It would be good if NGINX provided a graphical user interface."
"The scaling should be built into the software rather than configured from an outside source."
"They should do in the open source version of what they did to Advanced HTTP, TCP, and UDP load balancing."
"NGINX is not cost-effective, especially for few applications, and is considered higher-priced."
"Our most challenging part was to run an older PHP website reverse-proxied through NGINX. That was not fun."
"The center management system was not very good, maybe their new NGINX manager product is better."
"Only improvement needed that I would point to is scalability. With it, I mean clusterized organisation on a low level. At the moment, the best alternative is RHEL HA."
"I am not so happy with their pricing policy, but this is not the worse thing in my life."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Nginx is free. I don't have experience with the Plus version."
"The cost is reasonable."
"The list price of NGINX Plus is close to $5,500."
"The price is the cost to contract support with a specialized company, usually during consulting hours.​"
"​NGINX Plus is worth it, if you need it. If you do not need the features or support, the free and open source package is more than capable. ​"
"The solution is free, but you can spend a lot of money with a complex solution."
"Compared to other similar solutions on the market, I think it's over-priced."
"HAProxy is cheaper than NGINX."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

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Which is better - IIS or NGINX Plus?
IIS is a flexible, secure, and manageable web server to host anything on the web. IIS’s scalable and open architecture can handle the most demanding tasks. From media streaming to web applications,...
What needs improvement with NGINX Plus?
There were some vulnerabilities in F5. They tried to fix it, but the fixes were not available at the time because they were zero days, so they attempted to fix it, but their support was not proper....
 

Also Known As

Lightning ADS
NGINX, F5 NGINX Plus
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Handle Financial
Locaweb, AppNexus, Wix, Reliam, Montana Interactive, MuleSoft, Warpwire, Discovery Education, InkaBinka, WordPress.com, Gogo, GOV.UK, NASA
Find out what your peers are saying about A10 Networks Lightning ADC vs. NGINX Plus and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.