NGINX Controller vs NGINX Plus comparison

NGINX Controller and NGINX Plus are both solutions in the Application Infrastructure category. NGINX Controller is ranked #19 with an average rating of 7.0, while NGINX Plus is ranked #4 with an average rating of 7.8. NGINX Controller holds a 0.9% mindshare in AIS, compared to NGINX Plus’s 8.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of NGINX Controller users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of NGINX Plus users who would recommend it.

NGINX Controller

Read 1 NGINX Controller review

198 Views
198 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

NGINX Plus

Read 32 NGINX Plus reviews

4,092 Views
1,637 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

NGINX Controller

NGINX Plus

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between NGINX Controller and NGINX Plus based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, IBM, F5 and others in Application Infrastructure.

To learn more, read our detailed Application Infrastructure Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Application Infrastructure

March 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 884,873 peers since 2012

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

NGINX Controller

Ranking in Application Infrastructure

19th

Average Rating

7.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

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) (9th)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of NGINX Controller is 0.9%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX Plus is 8.9%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
NGINX Plus	8.9%
NGINX Controller	0.9%
Other	90.2%

Application Infrastructure

Featured Reviews

Satheesh Papisetty

Digital Services & Engagement Senior Manager at AXA

Load balancing and security strengthen operations while error handling needs improvement

We use NGINX Controller for load balancing purposes. Our use case involves integrating it with a three-tier architecture, where it serves as a critical component for application routing, handling index pages, and enhancing security The most valuable features of NGINX Controller include its…

Read full review

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"NGINX Controller is cheap compared to other solutions, and it offers significant cost and time savings."

"I utilize NGINX for its capability to provide visibility and discovery options, helping discover and identify networks, which is crucial for ensuring application performance, managing latency, and checking server reachability."

"Application Gateway with application-level firewall tool and load distributor and balancer (also serves for A/B testing)."

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

"The flexibility of its modules allow it to be scalable."

"NGINX provides a cost advantage, value addition, and effective support."

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

"It's lightweight software that can handle heavy loads efficiently."

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

More NGINX Plus pros

Cons

"The technical support from NGINX Controller is not good. They do not offer quick responses or 24/7 support, which is lacking when immediate assistance is needed."

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

"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. "

"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."

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

"They should do in the open source version of what they did to Advanced HTTP, TCP, and UDP load balancing."

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

"One area of improvement could be that NGINX could provide a means to generate self-signed SSL certificates."

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

More NGINX Plus cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

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

"I use the solution's community edition which is free of cost."

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

"You pay for each feature that you want."

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

"HAProxy is cheaper than NGINX."

"The cost is reasonable."

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

More NGINX Plus pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Infrastructure solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	11

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NGINX Controller?

NGINX Controller is cheap compared to other solutions, and it offers significant cost and time savings.

See all answers

What needs improvement with NGINX Controller?

The error handling in NGINX Controller requires improvement. The handling of misconfigurations is not good enough and needs enhancements.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for NGINX Controller?

We use NGINX Controller ( /products/nginx-controller-reviews ) for load balancing purposes. Our use case involves integrating it with a three-tier architecture, where it serves as a critical compon...

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

IIS vs NGINX Controller

Compared 63% of the time

More NGINX Controller Competitors

IIS vs NGINX Plus

Compared 13% of the time

Apache Web Server vs NGINX Plus

Compared 10% of the time

HAProxy vs NGINX Plus

Compared 9% of the time

NetScaler vs NGINX Plus

Compared 8% 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

Application Infrastructure

March 2026

Download NGINX Controller product report

Buyer's Guide

NGINX Plus

March 2026

Download NGINX Plus product report

Also Known As

No data available

NGINX

Overview

Built to manage NGINX Plus instances at scale, NGINX Controller provides DevOps and developers a self-service, API driven control plane for their most critical application and security services. Manage and monitor load balancers, API gateways, and web application firewalls across any cloud, all from a single pane of glass.

The NGINX Controller API Management Module is an API management solution, combining NGINX Plus as an API gateway with new control‑plane functionality. NGINX Controller is designed to empower Infrastructure & Operations and DevOps teams to define, publish, secure, monitor, and analyze APIs, without compromising performance.

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

Information Not Available

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

Buyer's Guide

Application Infrastructure

March 2026

Download Free Report

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, IBM, F5 and others in Application Infrastructure. Updated: March 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our list of best Application Infrastructure vendors.

We monitor all Application Infrastructure reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.