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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."
"It's very easy to deploy."
"NGINX App Protect is stable."
"There's a cache, or it works like a proxy, so it can speed up applications."
"We were looking for a product that is capable of complete automation and a container based solution. It's working."
"It is a stable solution."
"It is a very good tool for load balancing."
"The most valuable feature is that I can establish different services from the firewall."
 

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."
"The setup of NGINX App Protect is complex. The full process took one week to complete. Additionally, we had to change the network infrastructure platform which took one month."
"The price of NGINX App Protect could improve."
"The integration of NGINX App Protect could improve."
"NGINX App Protect could improve security."
"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 configuration needs to be more flexible because it is difficult to do things that are outside of the ordinary."
"The dashboard could provide a more comprehensive view of the status of the connections."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"NGINX App Protect is expensive."
"The pricing is reasonable because NGINX operates on an instance basis."
"The solution's price is reasonable."
"NGINX is not expensive."
"Really understand the licensing model, because we underestimated that."
"There is a monthly or annual subscription to use NGINX App Protect. There are not any additional costs to the subscription."
"The price of NGINX App Protect is approximately $3,000 annually. All of our licenses are observed by a managed service partner."
"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.