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NGINX Plus vs Zend PHP Engine comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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)
Zend PHP Engine
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
11
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 Zend PHP Engine is 2.7%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NGINX Plus7.9%
Zend PHP Engine2.7%
Other89.4%
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.
MW
CEO at VonatelNetworks
Effective network data analysis with customization capabilities and an open-source model
We use Zend PHP Engine in a government project to develop a tool for network monitoring analysis. We utilize the tool to collect all the network data for a platform PHP allows us to personalize a solution if the customer desires. This flexibility is beneficial. Zend PHP Engine is a good tool for…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a great product, it serves us well and is the best solution."
"The primary valuable feature of NGINX for me is its ability to provide a reverse proxy."
"When you use NGINX, you have more options and power."
"NGINX works much better than HAProxy in our current hardware and architecture for HTTP/HTTPS load balancing. ​​"
"The best solution, by far, for web traffic control for things in production and just around the house."
"I receive very good support."
"NGINX is the best available tool today for the tasks it covers."
"Zero Downtime has always been a strength in recommending infrastructure web services, and NGINX allows me to execute such infrastructure with less complications and the ability to switch from server to server easily."
"This solution is really easy for me to use."
"Zend PHP Engine is more secure than any other framework, and I usually prefer Zend PHP Engine for big applications."
"The fact that it is available open-source is the best feature."
"Zend Engine gives the flexibility to use external modules to easily expand the functionalities you need for your web project."
"Faster web app implementation, when PHP dev is required by customers."
"The solution's initial setup process is easy."
"It offers good support for various types of classes, along with many open source libraries that we can readily utilize in our application development process. This gives us a lot of options when it comes to custom development solutions, without having to worry about licensing or other programming-related issues."
"Zend PHP Engine is a good tool for developing and collecting data, offering strong performance."
 

Cons

"The scalability could be improved."
"It would be great if there was even more automation to make it even easier to maintain."
"I am not so happy with their pricing policy, but this is not the worse thing in my life."
"The user interface could be improved."
"The KPI on NGINX Plus should be more focused on load balancing and the latency in application calling from the end system."
"I would like to see the Grafana integration in NGINX which is already present in HAProxy. Grafana integration will help the solution visualize all the data analytics on the dashboard which is currently not present."
"NGINX is a very basic load balancer and cannot do as many customizations as F5."
"Compared to other similar solutions on the market, I think it's over-priced."
"In terms of improvement, it doesn't support concurrent processing. When we want to process anything on a concurrent basis, we have to divide it into a number of things, like a queue, or we have to run it using Cron jobs. We would like to have the capability to run any thread or process in parallel."
"The main area that Zend needs to improve is to support asynchronous programming tasks, which is facilitated in PHP 7, but not at the same degree as HHVM.​​"
"Integration of MVC with ORM tools for PHP is okay, but lacking a short list of decent ORM tools for PHP to choose from; there is ample room for improvement in both areas."
"The solution can be quicker."
"SQL queries have always been an issue with PHP, especially if you use large tables, which require caution from the side of the developer.​"
"The process of installing and configuring the product is a bit complex and could be improved."
"Zend PHP Engine needs to improve the loading time of its libraries and make it faster."
"A general scripting language should be further developed and should be embedded into it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I use the solution's community edition which is free of cost."
"There's an open-source version of NGINX that is free."
"Compared to other similar solutions on the market, I think it's over-priced."
"You pay for each feature that you want."
"I am not so happy with their pricing policy, but this is not the worse thing in my life. I can tolerate it."
"It's an open source solution, so it's free."
"The solution is free, but you can spend a lot of money with a complex solution."
"​NGINX is a free tool in Brazil. There are some companies which do support it.​"
"The solution is open source and you just pay for the server cost."
"Zend PHP Engine is not an expensive solution."
"The Zend PHP engine is open source technology, so there's no need for us to worry about licensing or other costs."
"No problem with pricing and licensing, as tools are open source. You have to consider training cost, mindset setup cost, as part of the TCO."
"Its pricing depends on the number of users."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
13%
 

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 Business9
Large Enterprise2
 

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....
What needs improvement with Zend PHP Engine?
Integrating AI tools would make PHP more competitive, as other tools already have AI features.
What is your primary use case for Zend PHP Engine?
We use Zend PHP Engine in a government project to develop a tool for network monitoring analysis. We utilize the tool to collect all the network data for a platform.
 

Also Known As

NGINX, F5 NGINX Plus
PHP Engine
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Locaweb, AppNexus, Wix, Reliam, Montana Interactive, MuleSoft, Warpwire, Discovery Education, InkaBinka, WordPress.com, Gogo, GOV.UK, NASA
Cisco
Find out what your peers are saying about NGINX Plus vs. Zend PHP Engine and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.