IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs NGINX Plus comparison

IBM and F5 are both solutions in the Application Infrastructure category. IBM is ranked #17 with an average rating of 8.0, while F5 is ranked #4 with an average rating of 7.8. IBM holds a 2.3% mindshare in AIS, compared to F5’s 9.0% mindshare. Additionally, 84% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of F5 users who would recommend it.

IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Read 13 IBM WebSphere Message Broker reviews

1,064 Views
394 Comparison Views

84% willing to recommend

NGINX Plus

Read 32 NGINX Plus reviews

3,930 Views
1,533 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

IBM WebSphere Message Broker

NGINX Plus

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

IBM WebSphere Message Broker and NGINX Plus compete in the realm of IT infrastructure solutions. IBM WebSphere Message Broker holds the advantage in comprehensive messaging and integration capabilities, whereas NGINX Plus provides superior load balancing and web server functionalities, appealing for speed and efficiency.

Features: IBM WebSphere Message Broker provides robust message transformation, support for multiple protocols and data formats, and seamless integration capabilities that cater to complex IT environments. NGINX Plus offers advanced load balancing, application firewall, and monitoring features, excelling in environments requiring high performance and scalability.

Room for Improvement: IBM WebSphere Message Broker could improve by simplifying its deployment process, enhancing user interface intuitiveness, and reducing overhead in less complex environments. NGINX Plus can expand its protocol support, enhance its monitoring capabilities, and offer more extensive logging features to support enterprise environments with complex operational demands.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NGINX Plus has a lightweight architecture that ensures straightforward deployment and setup, backed by responsive customer support that aids quick troubleshooting. IBM WebSphere Message Broker, while powerful, involves a complex deployment process and customer support that, although thorough, may come across as more formal and less agile.

Pricing and ROI: NGINX Plus generally offers a cost-effective initial investment with predictable subscription pricing, allowing for a quicker ROI in performance-focused applications. IBM WebSphere Message Broker incurs higher initial costs but provides substantial ROI in environments needing comprehensive integration and data management solutions. The pricing structure of NGINX Plus might appeal more to businesses targeting swift deployment and lower long-term expenses.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. NGINX Plus Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. NGINX Plus

February 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

IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Ranking in Application Infrastructure

17th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (9th)

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 February 2026, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IBM WebSphere Message Broker is 2.3%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX Plus is 9.0%, 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	9.0%
IBM WebSphere Message Broker	2.3%
Other	88.7%

Application Infrastructure

Featured Reviews

BrajendraKumar

Technical Architect at HCL Technologies

Offers large-sized business information processing with a time-saving setup and impressive stability

I primarily use two previews of the product for Dev and two for QA as part of the production process. Whatever tools our company is using, the cost of a license in IBM WebSphere Message Broker is about 80% of all these software or tools. The message routing capabilities satisfy workflow efficiency. The product supports message formats of XML, JSON, and SSID, which are around 24 KB to 50 KB in size. The solution supports communication protocols like STTP and TCP. Features like DataGraph need to be introduced in IBM WebSphere Message Broker. Some of the clients of our organization are using an outdated version of IBM WebSphere Message Broker for which the vendor doesn't provide direct support anymore. For the aforementioned version, our company professionals can solve the queries on their own without seeking support from IBM. During the installation of a prior version of IBM WebSphere Message Broker, sometimes I have to configure the failovers through the cluster, where issues arise, and I often seek help from the support team. The solution is being used by some medicine companies in our organization that receive sales orders from the EDR or JDE. I would not recommend the product to others as its becoming obsolete and they can rather choose a middleware solution from Amazon or Azure. But I would overall rate the product a nine out of ten.

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Nadeem-Inamdar

Senior Information Security Engineer at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

Advanced policies and web firewall have strengthened application protection and reduced attack traffic

There were some vulnerabilities in F5. 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. Their support should be improved because sometimes features which we need for customization take time, and they are sometimes feasible and sometimes not feasible by the team, so their support and the engineering team should improve their product. I would like to see more features regarding customization which should be built into the application, and the tool optimization should be good, and the dashboard should be more crisp and clear.

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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 only use the basic features, but the most valuable one for us is the Publish-subscribe pattern."

"It has many interfaces and you can connect to any backend source that has another format, and convert it to the desired format."

"Straightforward development and deployment."

"The transactions and message queuing are the most valuable features of the solution."

"It's reliable for our day-to-day operations, ensuring fast and secure data integration across different systems."

"Performance-wise, this solution is really good."

"IBM WebSphere Message Broker is one of the best middleware solutions"

"Message Broker is valuable because most of the applications are using MQ. Even in my current engagement, the few applications which I audit to onboard the bank are using MQ."

More IBM WebSphere Message Broker pros

"Its versatility and capabilities make it invaluable for implementing patches and fixes when necessary."

"Nginx is extremely efficient in terms of the connection rate to the CPU cycles ratio, and in terms of the bandwidth to CPU cycles."

"The web proxy and the database proxy are excellent."

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

"The robust software architecture allows for it to be scalable and very stable."

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

"NGINX works much better than HAProxy in our current hardware and architecture for HTTP/HTTPS load balancing. "

"Zero Downtime has always been a strength in recommending infrastructure web services. NGINX allows me to execute such infrastructure with less complications and the ability to switch from server to server easily."

More NGINX Plus pros

Cons

"The images and size of the containers are too big and I think that they should be more lightweight."

"Technical support is good but they could have a better response time."

"It is currently a weighty product."

"As our business requirements evolve, we require more dynamic capabilities to adapt and scale our services accordingly."

"The user interface is designed mainly for experts, much in the way a BPM or another integration tool is."

"Stability and pricing are areas with shortcomings that need improvement."

"The product's features are not being upgraded or enhanced by the vendor"

"Today I probably wouldn't go for Message Broker because of the cost structure, support, and the whole ecosystem around IBM."

More IBM WebSphere Message Broker cons

"Our most challenging part was to run an older PHP website reverse-proxied through NGINX. That was not fun."

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

"The solution needs to be easier to setup and deploy."

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

"NGINX is a very basic load balancer and cannot do as many customizations as F5."

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

"There is room for improvement in the pricing model."

"The biggest room for improvement would be to allow NGINX Core machines to cluster for memory zones in some way with a plug and play module. "

More NGINX Plus cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is very high and it's the main reason that we are searching for alternatives."

"The licensing cost of IBM WebSphere Message Broker needs to be reduced"

"The solution is expensive."

"I feel with IBM, when you want certain functions or features, you have to continuously purchase add-ons. There are always additional fees."

"IBM products are generally more stable and have more features, but also come at a greater cost."

"IBM software can be costly, but having a contract has helped manage and potentially lower costs over time."

"This product is more expensive than competing 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."

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

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

"It's an open source solution, so it's free."

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

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

"Nginx is free. I don't have experience with the Plus version."

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

More NGINX Plus pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

22%

Computer Software Company

11%

Insurance Company

Transportation Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Large Enterprise	10

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

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM WebSphere Message Broker?

IBM software can be costly, but having a contract has helped manage and potentially lower costs over time.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM WebSphere Message Broker?

There could be greater flexibility and agility in service creation for the product. As our business requirements evolve, we require more dynamic capabilities to adapt and scale our services accordi...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM WebSphere Message Broker?

We use the product for exposing services at the application level, integrating with various architectures like WebSphere, and handling static service creation.

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?

Pricing is reasonable and that is fine.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 23% of the time

webMethods.io vs IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Compared 14% of the time

Mule ESB vs IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Compared 11% of the time

IIS vs IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Compared 10% of the time

IBM BPM vs IBM WebSphere Message Broker

Compared 7% of the time

More IBM WebSphere Message Broker Competitors

IIS vs NGINX Plus

Compared 16% of the time

Apache Web Server vs NGINX Plus

Compared 13% of the time

HAProxy vs NGINX Plus

Compared 9% 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

IBM WebSphere Message Broker

January 2026

Download IBM WebSphere Message Broker product report

Buyer's Guide

NGINX Plus

January 2026

Download NGINX Plus product report

Also Known As

WebSphere Message Broker

NGINX

Overview

WebSphere Message Broker is an enterprise service bus (ESB) providing connectivity and universal data transformation for service-oriented architecture (SOA) and non-SOA environments. It allows businesses of any size to eliminate point-to-point connections and batch processing regardless of platform, protocol or data format.

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

WestJet, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Sharp Corporation, Michelin Tire

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

Buyer's Guide

IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. NGINX Plus

February 2026

Free Report: IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. NGINX Plus

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM WebSphere Message Broker vs. NGINX Plus and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.

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