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A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs NGINX Plus 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

A10 Networks Thunder ADC
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NGINX Plus
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of A10 Networks Thunder ADC is 5.0%, up from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX Plus is 7.9%, down from 8.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

SatishBabu - PeerSpot reviewer
Known for its load balancing capabilities, the WAF features need to be improved
The solution's initial setup process was easy. For the installation, it takes around five minutes. One person can do the maintenance since it is not required much. So, it's a one-time solution, and its maintenance is fine. The number of people required for maintenance depends on the clients as well. One or two engineers are fine to serve around a hundred clients. If you have a number of devices, more people are needed for their maintenance because of the patching it requires during regular operations. Only for the maintenance, one engineer's fine. However, for regular operations, we need multiple people.
Ritesh-Bakhru - PeerSpot reviewer
Quick installation and very easy to manage while doing orchestration or automation
NGINX cannot be a replacement for your traditional load balancer with what we use in the network today. However, with applications going toward microservices, NGINX is definitely a way forward. F5 has many traditional load balancing features, so they still need to bring some of those features to NGINX. NGINX is a very basic load balancer and cannot do as many customizations as F5. I think F5 is trying to implement those features in NGINX so they can improve the balancing on NGINX, but I think that will take some time. With the traditional F5 set up, the same OS can do load balancing, firewalls, and even policy enforcement. If we are able to bring some of those capabilities to NGINX, I think it would become a versatile solution and usage would definitely increase.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's a very friendly solution, easy to configure and it's very flexible."
"The solution is stable."
"The ease of use is very good. It's very robust. It just sits and works."
"The DNS application firewall and load balancing are very valuable."
"Compared to F5, which I used about six years ago, the A10 is much easier when routing. You don't have to use the wildcard bits to route it between the different segments. It's much less troublesome to configure."
"The most valuable features in A10 Networks Thunder ADC are the ease of configuration, user-friendliness, and simplicity to sell to customers."
"A10 explained why the latency dropped significantly on a site that we have."
"We can control access based on the specific application. If other devices are attempting to directly access the servers, you can block them. Additionally, you can balance the load among servers to optimize performance. For example, utilizing caching can make the application run faster."
"​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.​"
"The primary valuable feature of NGINX for me is its ability to provide a reverse proxy."
"It's lightweight software that can handle heavy loads efficiently."
"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."
"The product is resilient."
"Nginx is extremely efficient in terms of the connection rate to the CPU cycles ratio, and in terms of the bandwidth to CPU cycles."
"​The flexibility of its modules allow it to be scalable.​"
"NGINX provides a cost advantage, value addition, and effective support."
 

Cons

"The interface and integrated custom applications can be a bit difficult."
"The setup depends on certain situations. In certain scenarios, it may be more complex than others. For example, while the initial configuration may be easy, the environment itself may be complex and that may limit the ease of deployment. It is easy for those who understand their environment."
"There are competitors that have more features."
"A graphical dashboard for analyzing performance is needed."
"The solution does logging, but the logging capacity is really small. Because we have a bunch of traffic here, we usually get a logging-side warning that "This many logs were lost because of the heavy traffic." If the logging was better, that would be very good."
"There is room for improvement in the GUI. I just migrated from the 2.7 software train to the 4.1, and there are still people on 2.7. The latter is a very old GUI if you compare it to F5. It's not as easy to use and a lot of things are missing. They've made a lot of improvements in the 4.1 step, but compared to the ease of use of F5, it's still quite difficult. For people who haven't got a lot of experience, the GUI can be quite challenging."
"The user interface is what people complain about most of the time, particularly if they don't use it very often. Then they complain that it's a bit clunky."
"I would like them to provide learning tips and a community forum where users can share ideas. They need more detailed support articles on the A10 website."
"The drawback is that you must obtain a license for everything."
"I would suggest adding GUI-based configuration panels to NGINX Plus to simplify setup and management tasks."
"The scaling should be built into the software rather than configured from an outside source."
"I would like it to have a more user-friendly graphical interface."
"The KPI should be more focused on load balancing and the latency in application calling from the end system."
"NGINX is a very basic load balancer and cannot do as many customizations as F5."
"The solution's GUI is an area with certain shortcomings that need improvement."
"NGINX Plus is moderately priced, but it could give better value for money."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We did try out the solution’s Harmony analytics and visibility controller for its one-year trial. Due to the cost, we chose not to keep it onsite."
"We just pay for support in addition to our licensing."
"As for the initial investment in the hardware, F5 and A10 are quite similar now. For the current A10 solution, the initial cost was about $36,000. As for annual support, the F5 solution would be between $10,000 and $12,000, while the A10 is $2,200 a year for support."
"There were budgetary constraints that keep us from investing in the single pane of glass traffic management feature. We saw a demo of this feature about a year to a year and a half ago."
"It is $7000 per unit for the support annually."
"The pricing is a third of the price of the F5 competition."
"The price of A10 Networks Thunder ADC depends on capacity and the customer's requirement. They have several offerings. They have different price models and options to choose from. Additionally, you need to subscribe to support for the hardware appliances."
"The price of the maintenance support is too expensive."
"The solution is free, but you can spend a lot of money with a complex solution."
"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."
"​NGINX is a free tool in Brazil. There are some companies which do support it.​"
"I use the solution's community edition which is free of cost."
"The cost is reasonable."
"The list price of NGINX Plus is close to $5,500."
"I am not so happy with their pricing policy, but this is not the worse thing in my life. I can tolerate it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
13%
University
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
I would recommend A10 Networks due that it delivers high performance in a small form factor to reduce OPEX with significantly lower power usage, rack space, and cooling requirements compared to oth...
Do you recommend A10 Networks Thunder ADC?
I do recommend A10 Networks Thunder ADC. It's very user-friendly, easy to configure, and flexible. It is a very useful solution - especially now, when a lot of employees are working remotely. I hav...
What do you like most about A10 Networks Thunder ADC?
A10 Networks Thunder ADC is an easy-to-use and flexible solution.
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NGINX Plus?
My use case involves using the free and open-source version of NGINX, making it cost-effective as I haven't incurred any costs.
 

Also Known As

Thunder ADC, AX Series
NGINX
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

123inkt.nl, Bentley University, Box, Brainshark, Buienradar, Capgemini, CGN/LSN & NAT64, Chengdu Telecom, Club One, Code Ready, CRC Health Group, Cyso, Deutsche Telekom, Earth Class Mail, Excite, FFF Enterprises, Florence County, Framingham State University, From30
Locaweb, AppNexus, Wix, Reliam, Montana Interactive, MuleSoft, Warpwire, Discovery Education, InkaBinka, WordPress.com, Gogo, GOV.UK, NASA
Find out what your peers are saying about A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs. NGINX Plus and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,767 professionals have used our research since 2012.