Apache Web Server vs NGINX Plus comparison

Apache and F5 are both solutions in the Application Infrastructure category. Apache is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.8, while F5 is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.3. Apache holds a 10.8% mindshare in AIS, compared to F5’s 10.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Apache users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of F5 users who would recommend it.

Apache Web Server

Read 23 Apache Web Server reviews

1,798 Views
1,524 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

NGINX Plus

Read 31 NGINX Plus reviews

1,956 Views
1,647 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Apache Web Server

NGINX Plus

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

Apache Web Server and NGINX Plus compete in the web server software solutions category. Apache has an edge in community support and ease of customization, whereas NGINX Plus leads with its performance-focused design and advanced features for enterprises.

Features: Apache Web Server offers stability through its open-source support, compatibility with multiple operating systems, and extensive customizability. NGINX Plus provides efficient handling of client requests, advanced load balancing, and robust application delivery features.

Room for Improvement: Apache could improve in direct support and streamlining its user interface. Enhancing deployment processes to be more user-friendly would be beneficial. NGINX Plus requires simpler configuration methodologies and a better balance of open-source features against its pricing.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Apache Web Server excels in documentation and community support, although corporate support is lacking. NGINX Plus offers extensive deployment options with strong vendor support and community engagement, facilitating better customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Apache Web Server is free, offering substantial savings and rapid ROI. NGINX Plus, despite its licensing costs, provides value through premium features suitable for businesses with specific needs in advanced load balancing and security.

To learn more, read our detailed Apache Web Server vs. NGINX Plus Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Apache Web Server vs. NGINX Plus

April 2025

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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

Apache Web Server

Ranking in Application Infrastructure

4th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

NGINX Plus

Ranking in Application Infrastructure

2nd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of Apache Web Server is 10.8%, up from 10.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX Plus is 10.8%, down from 11.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Infrastructure

Featured Reviews

Sakthivel Veeramuthu

Technology Lead at Infosys

Easy to optimize for high performance and handle heavy traffic

Most of the features I liked were related to the performance during peak hours. Because I needed to optimize the Apache web server to run it as a high performer during my customers' usage, then I needed to reduce my Apache web server resource usage for that. So that part of the thing is what I was more interested in doing. So, I mainly liked the performance and security.

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Ritesh-Bakhru

Major Account Manager at Check Point Software

Quick installation and very easy to manage while doing orchestration or automation

NGINX cannot be a replacement for your traditional load balancer with what we use in the network today. However, with applications going toward microservices, NGINX is definitely a way forward. F5 has many traditional load balancing features, so they still need to bring some of those features to NGINX. NGINX is a very basic load balancer and cannot do as many customizations as F5. I think F5 is trying to implement those features in NGINX so they can improve the balancing on NGINX, but I think that will take some time. With the traditional F5 set up, the same OS can do load balancing, firewalls, and even policy enforcement. If we are able to bring some of those capabilities to NGINX, I think it would become a versatile solution and usage would definitely increase.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is scalable."

"Its community is its most valuable feature. Solving problems is easier on Apache because so many people know this product."

"Apache has proven to be incredibly reliable, and everything has operated smoothly without encountering any issues."

"The product's initial setup phase is straightforward."

"Apache Web Server can be used as a proxy server"

"The control panel is very easy to navigate. It's similar to most hosting platforms, so it's user-friendly. Once you get used to it, managing your hosting becomes easy, too."

"It's reliable, configurable and generally secure."

"The solution's most valuable feature is reporting."

More Apache Web Server pros

"I think installation only took a couple of minutes — no more than 10 minutes."

"NGINX Plus also has NGINX App Protect. It's a separate module, which is inspired by the F5 apps."

"NGINX Plus' most valuable feature is the ingress controller."

"With NGINX, I appreciate its ability to route traffic geographically."

"This solution has everything."

"The load balancing module, which is equivalent to LTM, is the focus of the PSE. So far, the features of both are identical. I believe NGINX has more features for securing these services, but in terms of load balancing, both are massive solutions."

"When I worked in a security research center, we tested NGINX to support DoS and DDoS attacks, and its results were great."

"Application Gateway with application-level firewall tool and load distributor and balancer (also serves for A/B testing)."

More NGINX Plus pros

Cons

"The interface has room for improvement."

"Its stability could be better."

"By optimizing the infrastructure to allow the webserver to directly handle queries from memory—particularly by prioritizing the storage of queries in memory and processing them through the web server interface—I could potentially cut down the required instances from five hundred to two hundred."

"In future releases, I would like to see better server optimization."

"Lacks integration with some cloud solutions."

"The major issue occurs with ports. So, I would like to see easier port management."

"Things change very fast. We're always on the lookout for better approaches and tools. If the solution falls behind, we may have to switch."

"It would be great if technical support for Apache were available in Iran. It is a very important need."

More Apache Web Server cons

"Make modules easier to enable or disable. The beauty and ugly side of the NGINX modules is you have to know how to compile the module. For beginners or non-very technical aspirant(s) going for NGINX, they have to learn how to compile the modules."

"The biggest room for improvement would be to allow NGINX Core machines to cluster for memory zones in some way with a plug and play module. "

"Improvement needed in NGINX Plus could focus on optimizing memory usage for users."

"I would like the configuration process to be more simplified."

"Lack of a feature to print data on the terminal for verification of network traffic during debugging and testing."

"The solution's GUI is an area with certain shortcomings that need improvement."

"The scaling should be built into the software rather than configured from an outside source."

"The user interface could be improved."

More NGINX Plus cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an open-source solution."

"It is a free-of-cost solution."

"The apache software is free, open-source."

"There is no licensing cost for the product."

"NGINX is a free tool in Brazil. There are some companies which do support it."

"You pay for each feature that you want."

"I am not so happy with their pricing policy, but this is not the worse thing in my life. I can tolerate it."

"The price is the cost to contract support with a specialized company, usually during consulting hours."

"Compared to other similar solutions on the market, I think it's over-priced."

"The cost is reasonable."

"The solution is free, but you can spend a lot of money with a complex solution."

"There's an open-source version of NGINX that is free."

More NGINX Plus pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user240036

Senior IT Architect at a university with 5,001-10,000 employees

Apr 10, 2016

Apache vs. Nginx

Originally posted https://zitseng.com/archives/10435 Apache or Nginx. This is a question that many website administrators have considered. It’s a question that I’ve also considered several times, and again just the past week. Apache is the most popular web server on the Internet. Nginx, on the…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

17%

University

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

18%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Apache Web Server?

The product's initial setup phase is straightforward.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apache Web Server?

Apache Web Server is a free product, with no associated setup costs or licensing fees.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Apache Web Server?

There is no need for substantial improvements as we have a dedicated team managing the server, ensuring everything runs smoothly.

See all answers

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,...

See all answers

What do you like most about NGINX Plus?

It performs very well. That's one of the primary reasons we use NGINX.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NGINX Plus?

My use case involves using the free and open-source version of NGINX, making it cost-effective as I haven't incurred any costs.

See all answers

Comparisons

IIS vs Apache Web Server

Compared 41% of the time

Microsoft .NET Framework vs Apache Web Server

Compared 9% of the time

Zend PHP Engine vs Apache Web Server

Compared 7% of the time

IBM WebSphere Application Server vs Apache Web Server

Compared 7% of the time

Oracle SOA Suite vs Apache Web Server

Compared 5% of the time

More Apache Web Server Competitors

IIS vs NGINX Plus

Compared 17% of the time

HAProxy vs NGINX Plus

Compared 15% of the time

NetScaler vs NGINX Plus

Compared 11% of the time

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs NGINX Plus

Compared 10% of the time

VMWare Avi Load Balancer vs NGINX Plus

Compared 5% of the time

More NGINX Plus Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Apache Web Server

May 2025

Download Apache Web Server product report

Buyer's Guide

NGINX Plus

May 2025

Download NGINX Plus product report

Also Known As

Apache HTTP Server

NGINX

Overview

The Apache HTTP Server Project was founded in 1995 by a group of webmasters, known as The Apache Group, with the aim of developing robust, richly-featured, freely-available and commercial-standard Web (HTTP) server source code. The result was Apache Web Server or Apache HTTP Server, which is an open-source public-domain web server.

This collaborative project has been enhanced ever since with contributions from the core development team and other volunteers situated all over the globe. Also, hundreds of users of this open-source web server have contributed code, ideas, and documentation. The project falls under The Apache Software Foundation, which manages many open-source projects.

Apache

NGINX Plus is a versatile solution that offers load balancing, caching, proxying, and API deployment capabilities. It can be deployed on private or public clouds and is ideal for building CDN solutions. The solution can also be used to secure web applications and replace web services like Apache.

NGINX has helped organizations improve functioning, reduce downtimes, and offer a DevOps-friendly solution. Its community support and documentation are highly regarded, and its configuration is more straightforward, making it a recommended choice over HAProxy.

Sample Customers

Cisco, Intuit, General Electric, Adobe, VMware, PayPal, HP, EMC, eBay, Apple, SAP, Qualcomm, SanDisk, Allstate, FedEx

Locaweb, AppNexus, Wix, Reliam, Montana Interactive, MuleSoft, Warpwire, Discovery Education, InkaBinka, WordPress.com, Gogo, GOV.UK, NASA

Buyer's Guide

Apache Web Server vs. NGINX Plus

April 2025

Free Report: Apache Web Server vs. NGINX Plus

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