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NGINX Plus vs Windows Process Activation Services comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Plus
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (12th)
Windows Process Activation ...
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
26th
Average Rating
4.0
Reviews Sentiment
2.8
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of NGINX Plus is 7.9%, down from 9.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Windows Process Activation Services is 1.4%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NGINX Plus7.9%
Windows Process Activation Services1.4%
Other90.7%
Application Infrastructure
 

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.
it_user1226547 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT Systems Administrator at a energy/utilities company with 501-1,000 employees
Central console enables us to see all of the activated and deactivated computers but it has poor alerts and frustrating technical support
The solution needs to allow for other company product licenses to be included if possible. The solution needs to include other Microsoft products, like Exchange, SharePoint, etc. Right now, it's only for Windows and Office. The solution needs to be made web-based. Right now, we have to install some tools and to use these tools we have to log into a specific server. If that server has an issue we cannot manage it. The solution needs to be able to be managed from any machine. Alerting capabilities should be improved. If a license expires or there is a breach, or something is non-compliant, the solution should send out alerts.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product is resilient."
"NGINX Plus also has NGINX App Protect. It's a separate module, which is inspired by the F5 apps."
"The load balancing module, which is equivalent to LTM, is the focus of the PSE, and so far, the features of both are identical, and I believe NGINX has more features for securing these services, but in terms of load balancing, both are massive solutions."
"I would recommend this solution."
"The most valuable features are the gateway and the ability to publish to sites."
"Application Gateway with application-level firewall tool and load distributor and balancer (also serves for A/B testing)."
"The web proxy and the database proxy are excellent."
"The primary valuable feature of NGINX for me is its ability to provide a reverse proxy."
"The most valuable aspect of the solution is the central console, that allows you to see all of the activated and deactivated computers."
 

Cons

"I would suggest adding GUI-based configuration panels to NGINX Plus to simplify setup and management tasks."
"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. ​"
"Lack of a feature to print data on the terminal for verification of network traffic during debugging and testing."
"I am not so happy with their pricing policy, but this is not the worse thing in my life."
"Improvement needed in NGINX Plus could focus on optimizing memory usage for users."
"Compared to other similar solutions on the market, I think it's over-priced."
"I would like it to have a more user-friendly graphical interface."
"NGINX is a very basic load balancer and cannot do as many customizations as F5."
"The solution is kind of a necessary evil for us."
"The stability of the solution needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You pay for each feature that you want."
"The list price of NGINX Plus is close to $5,500."
"The cost is reasonable."
"Nginx is free. I don't have experience with the Plus version."
"HAProxy is cheaper than NGINX."
"The solution is free, but you can spend a lot of money with a complex solution."
"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."
"There's an open-source version of NGINX that is free."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise11
No data available
 

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 needs improvement with NGINX Plus?
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....
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Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

NGINX, F5 NGINX Plus
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Locaweb, AppNexus, Wix, Reliam, Montana Interactive, MuleSoft, Warpwire, Discovery Education, InkaBinka, WordPress.com, Gogo, GOV.UK, NASA
Bank Alfalah Ltd., Harris Farm Markets, The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, John Keells Holdings, Green Prefab, 343 Industries, SM Prime, Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System Ltd.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, F5, Red Hat and others in Application Infrastructure. Updated: October 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.