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IBM DataPower Gateway vs NGINX Plus comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 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

IBM DataPower Gateway
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (5th), SOA Application Gateways (1st), API Management (12th)
NGINX Plus
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 4.5%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX Plus is 9.9%, down from 11.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

Mehdi El Filahi - PeerSpot reviewer
Security features meets compliance needs and offers MPGW (Multi-Protocol Gateway) that simplifies integration efforts
While I like IBM products, I'm not an evangelist. I work with Java, Microsoft ASP.NET, and various technologies. I'm not tied to any specific vendor. However, I do find IBM to be a bit greedy. It's a large, profit-driven company. The support team is mostly based in India, and they follow a very structured process and protocol. Sometimes, it feels like playing ping pong with them – lots of back and forth before the problem gets escalated. You might even have to get your sales rep involved to push things along. For me, the support it could be better. Indian support teams aren't inherently bad, but with IBM, it feels impersonal. They respond, sure. But if it's a complex technical issue, they might ask you a lot of questions that just seem designed to waste your time. Sometimes it feels like they hope you'll get frustrated and solve the problem yourself.
Michael Olayemi - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like that it is very stable, and we never experience any downtime."
"The product is stable...The product is scalable."
"Since it is a gateway, it provides a lot of security features."
"The API Connect gateway service and the SQL injection feature is good."
"The scalability of the solution is good."
"The solution is very easy to work with."
"I like the API Gateway feature."
"The most valuable features for our business include the ability to monitor and log data transactions and handle multiple request at an enterprise level."
"-"
"I receive very good support."
"NGINX Plus also has NGINX App Protect. It's a separate module, which is inspired by the F5 apps."
"The most valuable features are the gateway and the ability to publish to sites."
"With NGINX, I appreciate its ability to route traffic geographically."
"Its most valuable features are load balancing and application delivery. This is the most efficient application for these features because of stability and its efficiency."
"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 lightweight and fast."
 

Cons

"Small and medium-sized companies might look for cloud-hosted applications due to the cost."
"It is a costly product."
"I would like the tool to improve its training."
"The product's cost for data appliances or hardware is quite high. It needs improvement."
"Its support services could be better."
"The initial setup isn't so easy, you need who has experience working with the solution to help."
"The product should be more adapted to the DevOps process."
"Some pre-packaged connectors for integration with various applications, such as SaaS offerings, would be a useful addition."
"The solution must improve its performance."
"The KPI should be more focused on load balancing and the latency in application calling from the end system."
"One area of improvement could be that NGINX could provide a means to generate self-signed SSL certificates."
"Lack of a feature to print data on the terminal for verification of network traffic during debugging and testing."
"If NGINX brings some features for health check in the open source version, it would be better. ​"
"I would suggest adding GUI-based configuration panels to NGINX Plus to simplify setup and management tasks."
"The center management system could be improved."
"The drawback is that you must obtain a license for everything."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing cost is very expensive."
"As far as I know, they have a perpetual license for this product. They are paying perpetual fees rather than an annual subscription or annual pricing."
"The tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."
"The total cost of IBM DataPower Gateway would depend on the configuration, but in my experience, it can amount to 60,000 Euros per box, even for the virtual version. Usually, customers need high availability and a non-production environment, so the total price for IBM DataPower Gateway can be quite a lot. It can be 200,000 Euros or a similar figure."
"The solution has a return on investment but is a little expensive."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The solution is expensive in comparison to other products."
"IBM DataPower Gateway is quite expensive to get resources to work on this product. If the price could be cheaper, I think that will make it a little bit better and easily accessible to smaller clients. Then it could compete with other solutions that are available in the market. There's a whole lot of other solutions available that work well and are cheaper than IBM's products."
"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."
"Nginx is free. I don't have experience with the Plus version."
"The solution is free, but you can spend a lot of money with a complex solution."
"HAProxy is cheaper than NGINX."
"There's an open-source version of NGINX that is free."
"Compared to other similar solutions on the market, I think it's over-priced."
"I am not so happy with their pricing policy, but this is not the worse thing in my life. I can tolerate it."
"​NGINX is a free tool in Brazil. There are some companies which do support it.​"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
29%
Insurance Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
17%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM DataPower Gateway?
The MPGW (Multi-Protocol Gateway) is great because it allows you to easily expose services using various protocols – web services, REST (JSON), and others. This flexibility simplifies things.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM DataPower Gateway?
I would rate the pricing a two out of ten, with one being high price, and ten being low price. It's high-priced for smaller companies. But it is okay for enterprises. So, the price could be more fl...
What needs improvement with IBM DataPower Gateway?
The DCDR process should be less complex. AI should improve developer efficiency and effort. Whenever I am writing code, it should give recommendations automatically by incorporating AI so I can wri...
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 do you like most about NGINX Plus?
It performs very well. That's one of the primary reasons we use NGINX.
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.
 

Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
NGINX
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
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 IBM DataPower Gateway vs. NGINX Plus and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.