IBM DataPower Gateway vs NGINX Plus comparison

IBM and F5 are both solutions in the Application Infrastructure category. IBM is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.3, while F5 is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.0. IBM holds a 4.1% mindshare in AIS, compared to F5’s 9.6% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of F5 users who would recommend it.

IBM DataPower Gateway

Read 30 IBM DataPower Gateway reviews

5,383 Views
592 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

NGINX Plus

Read 31 NGINX Plus reviews

3,981 Views
1,473 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

IBM DataPower Gateway

NGINX Plus

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

IBM DataPower Gateway and NGINX Plus are products that compete in application deployment and management. NGINX Plus has the upper hand due to flexible deployment options and robust features, valuable despite competitive pricing.

Features: IBM DataPower Gateway offers comprehensive security and integration capabilities, recognized for enterprise-level security features. It provides robust application and API protection. NGINX Plus is known for strong load balancing and dynamic application scaling, easily integrating into cloud environments. It is preferred for its versatility, speed, and performance, handling various application types efficiently.

Room for Improvement: IBM DataPower Gateway could improve ease of deployment, requiring significant expertise and time. Cost optimization in terms of initial setup could enhance its appeal. Expanding community support would help users leverage its capabilities. NGINX Plus could enhance its advanced security features to match enterprise needs, address some DNS configuration challenges, and streamline integration for large-scale enterprises to maximize its potential.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NGINX Plus provides a simpler, more streamlined deployment process, benefiting from extensive documentation and community support. It simplifies integration into existing systems. IBM DataPower Gateway, while robust, requires more time and expertise for deployment with significant resources in customer service, favoring complex, secure environments.

Pricing and ROI: NGINX Plus generally offers a more cost-effective solution with quicker ROI due to lower initial setup costs and straightforward licensing. IBM DataPower Gateway has higher initial costs, justified by its detailed feature sets and security, which offer a slower yet impactful ROI in enterprise settings. The economic difference lies primarily in initial costs and time-to-value.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM DataPower Gateway vs. NGINX Plus Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM DataPower Gateway vs. NGINX Plus

September 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

IBM DataPower Gateway

Ranking in Application Infrastructure

12th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

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

Ranking in other categories

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 4.1%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX Plus is 9.6%, down from 11.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Infrastructure Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
NGINX Plus	9.6%
IBM DataPower Gateway	4.1%
Other	86.3%

Application Infrastructure

Featured Reviews

AkshaySawant

Manager at CSB Bank Ltd

Security features excel but development limitations emerge

We are using the IBM DataPower Gateway for security purposes. As per the development perspective, there are some limitations with IBM DataPower Gateway because it only supports XML and XSLT language, but it does not support the Java language. This is the only limitation of the IBM DataPower Gateway. For the authentication and authorization purpose, we can use the IBM DataPower Gateway. It's a very good product. We are mostly using the IBM DataPower Gateway for security purposes and load balancing purposes. If we are handling the load for a particular server, then we can use the IBM DataPower Gateway. The IBM DataPower Gateway is mostly used for security purposes. If we have some APIs and we are using some security for those APIs, then we can use it. It can also be used as a load balancer. It's also used for certificate management, user management purposes, authentication, and authorization. For routing, the IBM DataPower Gateway has multiple URL-based routing and content-based routing capabilities. If we have multiple URLs, then we can use an XML script. Using the XSLT language, we can configure multiple URLs and implement URL-based routing. Content-based routing means if we have multiple requests, we can route the request to a particular URL. For this, we need to use the XSLT language only. We can't use XML, Java, or other scripting languages. With IBM DataPower Gateway, we are using all the APIs. All APIs have been configured on the gateway. We have configured the particular TLS profile and some TLS client profiles as well. Using that TLS profile, we have configured the APIs and authentication. We have configured some tokens also, including JWT tokens and different types of auth tokens. There is also a rate limiting feature which we use for handling API loads.

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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

"The scalability of the solution is good."

"What I like most is the stability."

"I like the tool's security. Also, all functionalities are integrated within on platform."

"Support for PCA and non-PCA services is valuable."

"The performance is good. It's been very stable."

"It can look for the various security threats, productions, payload scanning, and perform routing based on the content type."

"The product is stable...The product is scalable."

"It is very easy to set up and configure, even for users with no prior experience."

More IBM DataPower Gateway pros

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

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

"The primary valuable feature of NGINX for me is its ability to provide a reverse proxy."

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

"I need to highlight that the number one thing about NGINX is that it is free."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is simple to configure."

"The most valuable features are the gateway and the ability to publish to sites."

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

More NGINX Plus pros

Cons

"We are always looking for more features wherein it could be easily integrated with cloud applications. We are looking for either a cloud solution or a cloud integration option."

"The initial setup isn't so easy, you need who has experience working with the solution to help."

"In the next release, I would like to see the product price reduced. It should be cheaper."

"The programming language is only supported in XSLT and Gateway script."

"It is a costly product."

"I would like the tool to improve its training."

"In terms of OEM support, it is poor. If I raise a CBRT one, as per the SLA, they should respond in one hour, however, sometimes it takes four or five hours to respond."

"Its support services could be better."

More IBM DataPower Gateway cons

"I would suggest adding GUI-based configuration panels to NGINX Plus to simplify setup and management tasks."

"The KPI should be more focused on load balancing and the latency in application calling from the end system."

"The solution must improve its performance."

"I would like it to have a more user-friendly graphical interface."

"It would be great if there was even more automation to make it even easier to maintain."

"The scalability could be improved."

"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."

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

More NGINX Plus cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Most customers' use case budgets are not inlined with the price of IBM DataPower Gateway. It is too expensive."

"The cost of this product varies from customer to customer and the relationship with IBM, including how many offerings from IBM are already being used."

"It is an expensive solution."

"The tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."

"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."

"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."

"The appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."

"The solution has a return on investment but is a little expensive."

More IBM DataPower Gateway pricing and cost advice

"You pay for each feature that you want."

"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."

"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."

"HAProxy is cheaper than NGINX."

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

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

More NGINX Plus pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

29%

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

15%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	16

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	10

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.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM DataPower Gateway?

This product is definitely expensive because if any issue occurs in the live environment or production environment, and our organization faces some issue with the IBM DataPower Gateway, then the IB...

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM DataPower Gateway?

I have significant experience with the IBM DataPower Gateway. As a security product, it is very good. However, from the development perspective, it has limitations because it only supports the XSLT...

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

IBM API Connect vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 37% of the time

Apigee vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 10% of the time

Kong Gateway Enterprise vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Azure API Management vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 6% of the time

Layer7 API Management vs IBM DataPower Gateway

Compared 2% of the time

More IBM DataPower Gateway Competitors

IIS vs NGINX Plus

Compared 16% of the time

Apache Web Server vs NGINX Plus

Compared 14% of the time

HAProxy vs NGINX Plus

Compared 10% of the time

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

Compared 10% of the time

A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs NGINX Plus

Compared 3% of the time

More NGINX Plus Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM DataPower Gateway

September 2025

Download IBM DataPower Gateway product report

Buyer's Guide

NGINX Plus

September 2025

Download NGINX Plus product report

Also Known As

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower

NGINX

Overview

IBM DataPower Gateway is a robust, secure next-generation enterprise-grade single multichannel API gateway that supplies dynamic access, integration, control, and outstanding security. The solution is available in a broad range of workload capabilities, including application programming interface (API), service oriented architecture (SOA), B2B, cloud, web, and mobile. These dynamic capabilities ensure users are able to quickly increase the reach of an organization's critical IT resources to new channels, which will provide shareholders, team members, and clients with safe, secure access at all times.

DataPower Gateway is very flexible and is widely available in virtual, cloud, traditional, physical, Docker, and Linux form factors.

IBM DataPower Gateway Features

IBM DataPower Gateway has many value-added features. Some of these features are included below:

Control: The solution provides decision point authorization and authentication for all standards, including Lightweight Direct Access Protocol (LDAP) and Open Authorization (OAuth), which allow for better access control across an organization’s entire network.
DataPower dashboard: The dashboard is specifically designed to enhance performance and determine problematic processes. The solution provides intuitive real-time performance transparency to diagnose operational and performance anomalies and offer repair and restoration recommendations.
Enhanced messaging: Users are able to easily mediate messaging and protocols by incorporating the best of today’s traditional and modern application standards.
Integration: IBM DataPower Gateway offers super fast mainframe connectivity, database connectivity, transport protocol bridging, content-based routing, and any-to-any message transformation, ensuring secure and immediate connect service.

IBM DataPower Gateway Benefits

IBM DataPower Gateway provides many benefits. Some of those benefits include:

Flexibility: The solution is easy to use and configure and provides for a pleasant, intuitive overall user experience. The solution can immediately be used out of the box, which makes overall process management simple.
Protection: The solution provides sturdy continuous service protection and application performance using robust powerful routing and traffic control.
Security: The solution’s enterprise-grade De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) ready gateway enables users to enforce the desired runtime application security across all messaging protocols.
Profitability: The solution’s design ensures significant reduction of development costs in addition to the streamlining of overall operations. Users are able to achieve reduced total cost of ownership (TCO) and experience a near-immediate ROI.

Reviews from Real Users

“My company has a good impression of IBM DataPower Gateway. What I like about it is that because it's an appliance, it's a turnkey solution that's very fast and out of the box. Another valuable feature of IBM DataPower Gateway is that it's easy to integrate with other products.”- Bálint T., Solution Manager at Intalion

“You don't have to have a separate DMC proxy because DataPower Gateway is an appliance and will take care of a lot of security features. These include data validations, encryption, as well as XML or any type of scripting or security threats that are present. From a security point of view, being an appliance in the DMC zone, IBM DataPower Gateway will take care of the entire security angle for the infrastructure.” - Sathyan K., Founder/Director at perfTech Solutions Pvt Ltd

IBM

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

RBL Bank, Availity

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

Buyer's Guide

IBM DataPower Gateway vs. NGINX Plus

September 2025

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