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Chainguard Containers vs NGINX App Protect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 2025

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

Chainguard Containers
Ranking in Container Security
31st
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.5
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Container Image Security (1st)
NGINX App Protect
Ranking in Container Security
27th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (15th), API Security (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Container Security category, the mindshare of Chainguard Containers is 1.2%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX App Protect is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
NGINX App Protect0.4%
Chainguard Containers1.2%
Other98.4%
Container Security
 

Featured Reviews

Abhishek - PeerSpot reviewer
DevSecOps at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Secured container workloads have reduced noise and monitoring improves with better debugging options
There are a lot of certain points where I feel that having the functionality of having debugging and ensuring that if I like, I can have the dependence of things where things I felt were lacking. Overall, the tool itself is kind of a great start for my evaluation. Because we are currently evaluating, we will have much more of an understanding of this tool again in the near future. If you talk about the concurrent processing, there is some bit of mismanagement happening in Chainguard Containers, which I do not like about it and which is kind of a deal breaker for me. On terms of scalability, because it is hosted on Kubernetes, there is no issue with the scaling and handling the infrastructure. However, when it comes to processing, there is a kind of a bit of a delay which happens. For most customers, this will not be relevant because what we deal with is the concurrency, and for us, every microsecond counts. So for our use case, perhaps that is a limitation, but for the overall market, I do not think that will be a great limitation for them. I'll say that having debugging possibilities can actually help to improvise Chainguard Containers more because as a product, I see a lack of visibility on that. Perhaps I might be wrong. I do not know exactly the way to do it. I am still in the evaluation process. That is one thing. The second thing is that there were no quick fixes available. That is problematic because if you are not able to configure it yourself, you should be able to get those quick fixes right away so that you can continue with your work. You need a detailed discipline if you want to debug those things because it is kind of a mess when you start debugging these containers when they fall. That is why I am still evaluating tools where I can get the balance of both.
JP
Project Manager at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Blocking IPs and detecting bots enhances security for medical websites
I was researching products like NGINX App Protect and F5 Advanced WAF for long-term options. I have some use for such a solution, but probably not before next year Detecting bots and blocking IPs have proven effective for securing applications. We were able to block groups of IP addresses that…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best feature of Chainguard Containers is being distroless, and the main thing I liked about it is that they follow the SBOM process and the continuous rebuilds they were doing, and they were helping me to rapidly remediate the failures which were happening."
"The stability of the product is very impressive since it handles 60,000 to 70,000 requests or transactions per second."
"The tool is not complex and is very user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature is that I can establish different services from the firewall."
"NGINX App Protect has complete control over the HTTP session."
"I tested specific features and evaluated the solution against the Web Application Firewall. I conducted research to test different detection percentages. I did not use it directly for protection but for evaluation purposes."
"NGINX App Protect's best features are auto-learning, which creates a profile of applications that are deployed, bot protection, and force protection, which lets you configure your brute force policy and alert for and prevent brute force attacks."
"The initial setup was simple and took three to four days."
"NGINX App Protect is stable."
 

Cons

"Sometimes there are backend errors which we come across again and again, and there is a resolution, but there are pending tickets for it. That sucks sometimes."
"It doesn't have more advanced features like no false-positive security, which you can configure in Advanced WAF."
"Areas for improvement would be if NGINX could scan for vulnerabilities and learn and update the signatures of DoS attacks."
"Currently, the policies have to be handled manually, and you have to create from scratch, which can be a bit time-consuming, in a large environment."
"The product's price is high, making it an area of concern where improvements are required. The tool's licensing model is also not good."
"It's challenging if you need to go for a high throughput."
"It would be better if it were easier to implement and if there was more information from F5 regarding hardware requirements and specifications to deploy the service, to avoid disruptions after implementation."
"The product's user interface is an area with shortcomings as it can be quite confusing for users, making it an area where improvements are required."
"NGINX App Protect could improve security."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Really understand the licensing model, because we underestimated that."
"The price of NGINX App Protect is not much different from the products that fall under the leader category of Gartner Magic Quadrant."
"The product's price is high."
"There is a license needed to use NGINX App Protect."
"There are not any additional costs we had to pay to use NGINX App Protect."
"There is a monthly or annual subscription to use NGINX App Protect. There are not any additional costs to the subscription."
"The pricing is reasonable because NGINX operates on an instance basis."
"Our licensing costs are about $40,000 a year."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Healthcare Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Chainguard Containers?
Currently, we are not paying for it. We are just evaluating right now, but we will get in discussion for that pricing and setup cost. So I cannot comment on that.
What needs improvement with Chainguard Containers?
There are a lot of certain points where I feel that having the functionality of having debugging and ensuring that if I like, I can have the dependence of things where things I felt were lacking. O...
What is your primary use case for Chainguard Containers?
I have been working in my current field for the last five and a half years. I have been evaluating Chainguard Containers for the last three months. I was looking for security and compliance, supply...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NGINX App Protect?
I don't know the pricing yet because in my other project, I was not part of the buying side and I was just starting to look at options.
What needs improvement with NGINX App Protect?
It would be better if it were easier to implement and if there was more information from F5 regarding hardware requirements and specifications to deploy the service, to avoid disruptions after impl...
 

Also Known As

No data available
NGINX WAF, NGINX Web Application Firewall
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks, Wiz, SentinelOne and others in Container Security. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.