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NGINX Plus vs VMWare Avi Load Balancer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.5
NGINX Plus boosts website speed and reduces costs, offering superior flexibility and scalability, ensuring significant returns for organizations.
Sentiment score
3.9
Users benefit from VMware Avi Load Balancer's flexibility and low hardware costs, though some face obstacles to quick financial gains.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
NGINX Plus offers robust support with responsive engineers, though some lower-tier licenses experience delayed responses; documentation often suffices.
Sentiment score
5.9
VMware Avi Load Balancer's customer support varies, with mixed reviews on responsiveness, expertise, and ticket handling efficiency.
Response time is good because they have assigned and dedicated support engineers to us, and we have weekly cadence calls.
Senior Information Security Engineer at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
Even when we have difficulty in VDI and other technology, they dig in, troubleshoot, and find the solution, even if it is not their issue.
Pre Sales at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
NGINX Plus is highly scalable and flexible, easily adapting to various enterprise needs and supporting multiple users and websites.
Sentiment score
6.9
VMWare Avi Load Balancer offers scalable architecture but opinions vary, highlighting strengths and limitations compared to hardware platforms.
While some people use NGINX for web servers, my current use case focuses on networking and tunneling, which does not necessitate much scaling.
Senior Software Engineer at Checkit
Scalability-wise, VMWare Avi Load Balancer is good.
Trainer/Consultant at Koenig Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
NGINX Plus is highly stable and reliable, praised for connectivity and performance, despite some scalability challenges in clustering.
Sentiment score
7.8
VMWare Avi Load Balancer is stable and reliable, though some question its capacity under heavy traffic for extensive infrastructures.
I require ninety-nine point nine percent uptime, and NGINX has been pivotal in helping me achieve this along with our other DNS services.
Senior Software Engineer at Checkit
From a stability point of view, VMWare Avi Load Balancer is stable.
Trainer/Consultant at Koenig Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
 

Room For Improvement

NGINX Plus users seek improved scalability, user-friendly interface, better integration, cost-effectiveness, advanced features, and enhanced support services.
VMWare Avi Load Balancer needs pricing, integration, security, and feature enhancements to compete with leaders like F5.
NGINX could provide a means to generate self-signed SSL certificates.
Senior Software Engineer at Checkit
There were some vulnerabilities in F5.
Senior Information Security Engineer at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
As with any application, there were initial issues, however, after receiving support, everything was rectified.
Executive Director at Geojit
Multi-cloud capability comes from a configuration called NSX Extended.
Pre Sales at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
The documentation needs to improve, as it was really handy a couple of years back.
Trainer/Consultant at Koenig Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
 

Setup Cost

NGINX Plus has a modular licensing model with varying costs, offering value but can be expensive compared to alternatives.
VMware Avi Load Balancer offers flexible, cost-effective licensing and competitive pricing compared to alternatives like F5, with minimal setup costs.
My use case involves using the free and open-source version of NGINX, making it cost-effective as I haven't incurred any costs.
Senior Software Engineer at Checkit
The solution offers a cost advantage.
Executive Director at Geojit
 

Valuable Features

NGINX Plus excels in load balancing, security, and integration, praised for simplicity, efficiency, and superior traffic management features.
VMWare Avi Load Balancer is valued for its integration, stability, intuitive interface, logging, analytics, and flexible deployment options.
For API management, the WebSocket, and the WebServer, NGINX provides a cost advantage, value addition, and effective support.
Executive Director at Geojit
The web application firewall feature has helped enhance security for our applications because most of the attacks which are performed on our website are being blocked by it.
Senior Information Security Engineer at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
The features I find most valuable in VMware Avi Load Balancer are the load balancing part and the WAF part.
Trainer/Consultant at Koenig Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
Native capability for load sharing can be accomplished from Fortinet or Palo Alto without the need to add additional tools.
Pre Sales at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

NGINX Plus
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (4th)
VMWare Avi Load Balancer
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of NGINX Plus is 6.8%, down from 8.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMWare Avi Load Balancer is 5.4%, up from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NGINX Plus6.8%
VMWare Avi Load Balancer5.4%
Other87.8%
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

Nadeem-Inamdar - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
reviewer2273484 - PeerSpot reviewer
Pre Sales at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Struggled with rising costs and limited value while managing internal traffic
The issue with load balancers is that they are all the same. I would rate it seven. I do not recall VMWare Avi Load Balancer having WAF protection. We use WAF and for this specific case, we use F5. It is not about VMWare Avi Load Balancer itself. For multi-cloud capability, you need to do NSX Extended and HCX in VMware. This is what will give you the flavor of multi-cloud. Others will be resources because once you reach NSX Extended, all resources will be under one cloud management. So it does not matter. It is not a feature in VMWare Avi Load Balancer that would be responsible for multi-cloud capability. Multi-cloud capability comes from a configuration called NSX Extended. It is very expensive. The pricing is expensive in that it is only an add-on. From my opinion, they should lower the price.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
8%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

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 do you like most about Avi Networks Software Load Balancer?
The solution has simplified our network infrastructure management.
What needs improvement with Avi Networks Software Load Balancer?
When it comes to improvements for VMWare Avi Load Balancer, I think the documentation part needs a bit of work. The original documentation which was on the Avi Vantage website in the good old days ...
 

Also Known As

NGINX
Avi Software Load Balancer
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Locaweb, AppNexus, Wix, Reliam, Montana Interactive, MuleSoft, Warpwire, Discovery Education, InkaBinka, WordPress.com, Gogo, GOV.UK, NASA
Palo Alto Networks, DGDean, Swisslos
Find out what your peers are saying about NGINX Plus vs. VMWare Avi Load Balancer and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.