Azul Zulu vs NGINX Plus comparison

Azul Systems and F5 are both solutions in the Application Infrastructure category. Azul Systems is ranked #11, while F5 is ranked #4 with an average rating of 7.8. Azul Systems holds a 3.7% mindshare in AIS, compared to F5’s 9.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Azul Systems users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of F5 users who would recommend it.

Azul Zulu

Read 2 Azul Zulu reviews

711 Views
675 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

NGINX Plus

Read 32 NGINX Plus reviews

3,866 Views
1,546 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Azul Zulu

NGINX Plus

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Azul Zulu and NGINX Plus based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, IBM, F5 and others in Application Infrastructure.

To learn more, read our detailed Application Infrastructure Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Application Infrastructure

January 2026

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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

Azul Zulu

Ranking in Application Infrastructure

11th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

AI Customer Experience Personalization (21st), AI Content Creation (58th)

NGINX Plus

Ranking in Application Infrastructure

4th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of Azul Zulu is 3.7%, down from 5.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX Plus is 9.3%, down from 11.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Infrastructure Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
NGINX Plus	9.3%
Azul Zulu	3.7%
Other	87.0%

Application Infrastructure

Featured Reviews

BasilJiji

System Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

Standardized our Java estate and have reduced licensing costs while maintaining strong support

Azul Zulu's ability to allow us to standardize our Java estate on a single and well-supported platform stands out as one of its best features. This standardization simplifies our compliance audits and ensures all our applications receive timely security updates.Azul Zulu positively impacts our organization by providing a platform that allows us to standardize Java on a well-supported platform. Without the high cost associated with other proprietary vendors, Azul Zulu provides an excellent platform for running our applications.

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Michael Olayemi

Senior Software Engineer at Checkit

Enables public access and secure configurations through reverse proxy

The primary valuable feature of NGINX for me is its ability to provide a reverse proxy. I have found that this feature supports our local server, and I am able to connect through our DNS system, making it accessible publicly. Additionally, the integration with SSL certificates and the configuration capabilities make it a valuable solution for my use case. Without NGINX, users would not be able to access our application, which means there is positive ROI from using NGINX as it is crucial for the functioning of my organization.

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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

"We achieved specific outcomes from using Azul Zulu by reducing our Java licensing and support costs by approximately 70% when compared to our previous Oracle contract."

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

"The product is resilient."

"The flexibility of its modules allow it to be scalable."

"Using NGINX Plus for web traffic distribution is fantastic. It offers performance similar to physical load balancers but with added flexibility."

"The product is lightweight and fast."

"NGINX provides a cost advantage, value addition, and effective support."

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

"Supports IMAP, POP and SMTP protocols for the reverse proxy."

More NGINX Plus pros

Cons

"Improvements for Azul Zulu could include more automated tools for unused code visibility integrated directly into the standard portal to help further optimize our cloud footprints."

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

"Initially, I experienced hiccups whenever I installed the application."

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

"I would like to see the Grafana integration in NGINX which is already present in HAProxy. Grafana integration will help the solution visualize all the data analytics on the dashboard which is currently not present."

"Initially, I experienced hiccups whenever I installed the application. As with any application, there were initial issues, however, after receiving support, everything was rectified."

"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."

"It would be good if NGINX provided a graphical user interface."

"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."

More NGINX Plus cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"HAProxy is cheaper than NGINX."

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

"NGINX Plus is an open-source solution with limited additional features. When you try to get additional features in the solution, then you need to pay an extra amount to NGINX Plus."

"The list price of NGINX Plus is close to $5,500."

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

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

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

More NGINX Plus pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

30%

Retailer

18%

Computer Software Company

11%

Real Estate/Law Firm

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	11

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Azul Zulu?

Improvements for Azul Zulu could include more automated tools for unused code visibility integrated directly into the standard portal to help further optimize our cloud footprints. The other core J...

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What is your primary use case for Azul Zulu?

Azul Zulu serves as our primary Java runtime, providing a stable, 100% open-source, and certified solution for our production microservices. We utilize it to ensure cross-platform compatibility acr...

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What advice do you have for others considering Azul Zulu?

My advice for others looking into using Azul Zulu is to perform a pilot migration with one non-critical application first. You will likely find that it is truly a drop-in replacement, which will gi...

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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,...

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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?

Pricing is reasonable and that is fine.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 38% of the time

Apache Web Server vs Azul Zulu

Compared 12% of the time

WebLogic Suite vs Azul Zulu

Compared 11% of the time

Oracle Hotspot vs Azul Zulu

Compared 11% of the time

IBM WebSphere Application Server vs Azul Zulu

Compared 7% of the time

More Azul Zulu Competitors

IIS vs NGINX Plus

Compared 17% of the time

Apache Web Server vs NGINX Plus

Compared 14% of the time

HAProxy vs NGINX Plus

Compared 10% of the time

NetScaler vs NGINX Plus

Compared 9% of the time

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

Compared 8% of the time

More NGINX Plus Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Application Infrastructure

January 2026

Download Azul Zulu product report

Buyer's Guide

NGINX Plus

January 2026

Download NGINX Plus product report

Also Known As

No data available

NGINX

Overview

Zulu is a 100% open source certified build of OpenJDK, running on Linux, Windows, and OS X. Zulu complies with the Java SE standard for Java SE 8, 7, and 6. Free to download and use, Zulu is available on Azure, AWS, Canonical’s Charm Store and the Docker hub. Zulu Enterprise subscriptions deliver 24 x 7 x 365 access to Azul’s Support team.

Azul Systems

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

Microsoft, Kyocera, OKI, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, Voya Financial

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

Buyer's Guide

Application Infrastructure

January 2026

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