NGINX Plus vs Zend PHP Engine comparison

F5 and Zend are both solutions in the Application Infrastructure category. F5 is ranked #4 with an average rating of 7.8, while Zend is ranked #14 with an average rating of 7.5. F5 holds a 9.0% mindshare in AIS, compared to Zend’s 1.7% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Zend users who would recommend it.

NGINX Plus

Read 32 NGINX Plus reviews

3,930 Views
1,533 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Zend PHP Engine

Read 11 Zend PHP Engine reviews

547 Views
547 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

NGINX Plus

Zend PHP Engine

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

Zend PHP Engine and NGINX Plus compete in web development and server management. NGINX Plus emerges superior with its performance optimization and scalability.

Features: Zend PHP Engine offers robust debugging tools, seamless PHP execution, and code protection. NGINX Plus provides load balancing, advanced security, and high-performance content delivery.

Room for Improvement: Zend PHP Engine could enhance its scalability, expand support for diverse programming environments, and improve integration with modern frameworks. NGINX Plus might simplify initial setup processes, offer more affordable pricing options, and enhance its documentation for better usability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zend PHP Engine is known for its easy deployment and PHP-focused support. NGINX Plus may require more initial configuration but offers comprehensive setup guides and responsive support for complex environments.

Pricing and ROI: Zend PHP Engine features competitive pricing, enhancing PHP developer productivity. NGINX Plus, despite higher setup costs, offers substantial ROI through performance optimization and server management cost savings.

To learn more, read our detailed NGINX Plus vs. Zend PHP Engine Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

NGINX Plus vs. Zend PHP Engine

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

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)

Zend PHP Engine

Ranking in Application Infrastructure

14th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of NGINX Plus is 9.0%, down from 11.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zend PHP Engine is 1.7%, up from 1.5% 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%
Zend PHP Engine	1.7%
Other	89.3%

Application Infrastructure

Featured Reviews

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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Marco Wwrthon

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…

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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

"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."

"I think installation only took a couple of minutes — no more than 10 minutes."

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

"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."

"I receive very good support."

"-"

"I need to highlight that the number one thing about NGINX is that it is free."

"Its most valuable features are load balancing and application delivery. This is the most efficient application for these features because of stability and its efficiency."

More NGINX Plus pros

"The fact that it is available open-source is the best feature."

"The Zend Framework provides an easy, open source way to produce coding based on the needs of our customers."

"Zend PHP Engine is more secure than any other framework, and I usually prefer Zend PHP Engine for big applications."

"Offers a complete environment to develop PHP applications. It is valuable because it allows you to have a complete stack (PHP, MySQL, Zend Server) enabling the building of a development environment, and to deploy to the production system."

"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."

"The cache modules that Zend provides have been able to optimize and accelerate the loading of the pages when there was exponential growth in data volume and quantity of requests. At the same time, the monitoring console allowed us to have a real-time understanding of the resources and to make decisions when they were at the limit."

"Faster web app implementation, when PHP dev is required by customers."

"The solution's initial setup process is easy."

More Zend PHP Engine pros

Cons

"The drawback is that you must obtain a license for everything."

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

"The user interface could be improved."

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

"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. "

"NGINX Plus is moderately priced, but it could give better value for money."

"I would like it to have a more user-friendly graphical interface."

"The solution's GUI is an area with certain shortcomings that need improvement."

More NGINX Plus cons

"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."

"Its object oriented programming language needs improvement."

"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."

"The solution can be quicker."

"The process of installing and configuring the product is a bit complex and could be improved."

"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."

"Zend PHP Engine needs to improve the loading time of its libraries and make it faster."

"Although it offers a complete environment to develop and deploy PHP applications, it has some limitations. For example, when the volume of data increased exponentially, I had problems scaling the system."

More Zend PHP Engine cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"The list price of NGINX Plus is close to $5,500."

"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."

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

"NGINX Plus is worth it, if you need it. If you do not need the features or support, the free and open source package is more than capable. "

"The price is the cost to contract support with a specialized company, usually during consulting hours."

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

More NGINX Plus pricing and cost advice

"Zend PHP Engine is not an expensive solution."

"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."

"The Zend PHP engine is open source technology, so there's no need for us to worry about licensing or other costs."

"Its pricing depends on the number of users."

"The solution is open source and you just pay for the server cost."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Comms Service Provider

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Large Enterprise	2

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,...

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

What do you like most about Zend PHP Engine?

The fact that it is available open-source is the best feature.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zend PHP Engine?

PHP is an open-source solution.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Zend PHP Engine?

Integrating AI tools would make PHP more competitive, as other tools already have AI features.

See all answers

Comparisons

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

Apache Web Server vs Zend PHP Engine

Compared 31% of the time

Atos DirX Directory vs Zend PHP Engine

Compared 26% of the time

More Zend PHP Engine Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

NGINX Plus

January 2026

Download NGINX Plus product report

Buyer's Guide

Application Infrastructure

February 2026

Download Zend PHP Engine product report

Also Known As

NGINX

PHP Engine

Overview

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.

The Zend PHP Engine is designed to optimize PHP code and improve performance, making it a popular choice for web developers. It is easy to use, stable, does not require a lot of code, is open source, and only requires payment for server costs. The initial setup is straightforward, and there is no real need to set up the solution because it's built into the deployment.

Zend

Sample Customers

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

Cisco

Buyer's Guide

NGINX Plus vs. Zend PHP Engine

February 2026

Free Report: NGINX Plus vs. Zend PHP Engine

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