A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs NGINX Plus comparison

A10 Networks and F5 are both solutions in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category. A10 Networks is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.2, while F5 is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.3. A10 Networks holds a 5.0% mindshare in ADC, compared to F5’s 8.5% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of A10 Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of F5 users who would recommend it.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Read 22 A10 Networks Thunder ADC reviews

2,841 Views
2,044 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

NGINX Plus

Read 28 NGINX Plus reviews

4,885 Views
3,959 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

A10 Networks Thunder ADC

NGINX Plus

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between A10 Networks Thunder ADC and NGINX Plus based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs. NGINX Plus Report (Updated: October 2024).

Buyer's Guide

A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs. NGINX Plus

October 2024

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Categories and Ranking

A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

9th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

NGINX Plus

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

5th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Infrastructure (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of A10 Networks Thunder ADC is 5.0%, up from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX Plus is 8.5%, down from 9.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

Featured Reviews

SatishBabu

Vice President at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

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.

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Ritesh-Bakhru

Major Account Manager at Check Point Software

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.

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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

"A10 explained why the latency dropped significantly on a site that we have."

"The ADCs are pretty straightforward and easy to use. There is a GUI base where you can go in and see everything, but they also have a CLI base where you can use a command and get the information that you want, very fast."

"It helps with the efficiency of application deployments and data security."

"We do have the option of creating virtual chassis, so that gives it a bit more security. If we find an application which is not going to play well in the main pool, we can easily create a virtual chassis and have that application in that virtual chassis. With the virtual chassis we can also create system partitions and have a test system for test applications, and have the others elsewhere."

"The most valuable features in A10 Networks Thunder ADC are the ease of configuration, user-friendliness, and simplicity to sell to customers."

"It's a very friendly solution, easy to configure and it's very flexible."

"The Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) is simple to use."

"The solution is stable."

More A10 Networks Thunder ADC pros

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

"When you use NGINX, you have more options and power."

"The best solution, by far, for web traffic control for things in production and just around the house."

"Valuable features include authentication, caching, reverse proxy routing, and load balancing."

"It's lightweight software that can handle heavy loads efficiently."

"The product is lightweight and fast."

"Using NGINX Plus for web traffic distribution is fantastic. It offers performance similar to physical load balancers but with added flexibility."

"NGINX Plus' most valuable feature is the ingress controller."

More NGINX Plus pros

Cons

"The product is expensive."

"We are starting to do a lot with containers and how the solution hooks into Kubernetes that we haven't explored. I'm hoping that they have a lot of hooks into Kubernetes. That would be the part for improvement: Marketing use cases with containers."

"A graphical dashboard for analyzing performance is needed."

"Currently, the solution's WAF features are fewer. They should consider increasing their WAF features."

"In my opinion, they need to improve their cloud support. There is support for cloud, but not all functions are there, such as high-availability."

"They need to make the user interface (GUI) a bit more usable and intuitive. Some features can be a little difficult to find at times. Sometimes, the workflow in the GUI doesn't match the workflow of an actual workflow. E.g., if I want to create a load balancer application, sometimes you've got to do things a bit out of order in the GUI in order to make it work right."

"The user interface is not as pretty as it could be."

"The costs can be quite high."

More A10 Networks Thunder ADC cons

"Make modules easier to enable or disable. The beauty and ugly side of the NGINX modules is you have to know how to compile the module. For beginners or non-very technical aspirant(s) going for NGINX, they have to learn how to compile the modules."

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

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

"Improvement needed in NGINX Plus could focus on optimizing memory usage for users."

"The user interface could be improved."

"I would like the configuration process to be more simplified."

"Lack of a feature to print data on the terminal for verification of network traffic during debugging and testing."

"The solution needs to be easier to setup and deploy."

More NGINX Plus cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is a third of the price of the F5 competition."

"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."

"The price is good they are very comparative."

"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."

"The solution costs less than its competitors."

"It is $7000 per unit for the support annually."

"The pricing is fine, considering the features they are providing. If you are an individual user, they'll price the product differently compared to how they price the product that is sold to an organization."

"The price of the maintenance support is too expensive."

More A10 Networks Thunder ADC pricing and cost advice

"You pay for each feature that you want."

"The solution is free, but you can spend a lot of money with a complex solution."

"I am not so happy with their pricing policy, but this is not the worse thing in my life. I can tolerate it."

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

"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."

"It's an open source solution, so it's free."

"The cost is reasonable."

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

More NGINX Plus pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

22%

Financial Services Firm

12%

University

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

17%

Government

Manufacturing Company

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...

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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...

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What do you like most about A10 Networks Thunder ADC?

A10 Networks Thunder ADC is an easy-to-use and flexible solution.

See all answers

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?

There's an open-source version of NGINX that is free. There's also NGINX Plus, which is a paid version with additional features.

See all answers

Comparisons

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Compared 22% of the time

NetScaler vs A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Compared 17% of the time

Fortinet FortiADC vs A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Compared 14% of the time

Kemp LoadMaster vs A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs A10 Networks Thunder ADC

Compared 5% of the time

More A10 Networks Thunder ADC Competitors

IIS vs NGINX Plus

Compared 19% of the time

HAProxy vs NGINX Plus

Compared 18% of the time

Kemp LoadMaster vs NGINX Plus

Compared 14% of the time

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs NGINX Plus

Compared 9% of the time

VMWare Avi Load Balancer vs NGINX Plus

Compared 2% of the time

More NGINX Plus Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

A10 Networks Thunder ADC

November 2024

Download A10 Networks Thunder ADC product report

Buyer's Guide

NGINX Plus

November 2024

Download NGINX Plus product report

Also Known As

Thunder ADC, AX Series

NGINX

Learn More

A10 Networks

Overview

A10 Networks Thunder ADC is a dynamic application delivery controller and advanced load balancer. Thunder ADC is a value-added solution provided by A10 Networks specializing in robust, trusted, scalable application services for cloud, hybrid, edge cloud, and on-premise environments focused on improving business processes and keeping infrastructures safe. The solution consistently provides server availability, improves content delivery, and protects at-risk applications. A10 Networks Thunder ADC easily controls hybrid and multi-cloud deployments using a Polynimbus strategy to minimize difficulties and costs for IT processes, facilitating overall improved business results.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC is effective for small to medium businesses (SMBs) to large enterprises. Service providers and cloud operators are all using A10 Network ADC to manage their large and fast-growing group of business-critical applications.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC supplies L4-7 load balancing with numerous layers of security using DNS and web app firewalls, comprehensive support for advanced encryption, single sign-on (SSO) authentication, and high-performance Perfect Forward Secrecy and Error Correction Code (PFS/ECC). Thunder ADC is designed upon A10 Networks Advanced Core Operating System (ACOS®) platform to provide consistent, efficient application performance and trusted security for any environment.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC Benefits

Consistently accessible: A10 Networks Thunder ADC employs numerous load balancing protocols to evenly distribute workloads to all servers and works to ensure constant application functionality. User requests are monitored to ensure loads are directed to the appropriate server so that there is always a proper response delivery to content. This process ensures the applications are consistently available.
Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB): To ensure business processes are fully optimized at all times, A10 Networks Thunder ADC employs a dynamic Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) process to augment server load balancing capabilities throughout global data centers for high availability and improved user experience and application tolerance.
Fast content delivery: A10 Networks Thunder ADC conquers the general WAN latencies, chatty policies, and redundant software programs to ensure quick and responsive service. Employees receive a fast, excellent end-user experience while the organization's business leaders get exceeded SLA mandates and increased productivity with teams working remotely and a step up on the competition.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC Features

Detailed Analytics: When deployed with A10 Networks Harmony Controller, Thunder ADC delivers a large selection of detailed aggregate and per-request reports in real time. The reports include popular URLs, error and health indicators, latencies, and end-to-end response times. The data is further dissected to deliver per-app reporting, availability alerts, and performance.
API Coverage: Thunder ADC utilizes A10 Networks REST-based aXAPIs to structure all features with 100 percent API coverage. The resulting interface is then used to seamlessly integrate custom or third-party management solutions, such as VMware or other SDN platforms, OpenStack, Microsoft SCVMM, or other cloud orchestration systems. There are also software plug-ins available for private clouds utilizing VMware’s vRealize Orchestrator.
Comprehensive Management Controls: Thunder ADC is fully supported by A10 Networks Harmony Controller and can be deployed in software or as a software-as-a-service (SaaS). This controller functions as a native management platform that organizes and distributes application-centric service protocols and configuration data to numerous Thunder appliances and device cluster infrastructures throughout numerous multi-cloud environments. Users can instantly identify, audit and track every appliance using critical operational metrics, such as CPU, disk usage, device partitions, and end users. The A10 Networks Harmony Controller will also complete configuration backups and restore operations, and will schedule regular software upgrades.

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.

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

Buyer's Guide

A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs. NGINX Plus

October 2024

Free Report: A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs. NGINX Plus

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