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IBM WebSphere Application Server vs NGINX Plus comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM WebSphere Application S...
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Application Server (5th)
NGINX Plus
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IBM WebSphere Application Server is 10.8%, up from 10.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX Plus is 11.9%, down from 12.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

Saleem Shar - PeerSpot reviewer
Compatible, stable, and scalable
IBM WebSphere Application Server is one of the best servers due to its stability and paid license. I have never encountered any issues when installing and deploying applications, as it never goes down. Currently, there are two versions of WebSphere Application Server: the old version, known as WebSphere Application ND, and the newer version, Liberty, which is Docker-based. I have experience with both and have never encountered any issues. I believe that WebSphere Application Server is a great feature.
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

"This solution is easy to use with a GUI that is intuitive and very helpful."
"IBM WebSphere Application Server is one of the best servers due to its stability and paid license."
"IBM WAS is extremely scalable. It is easy to add additional servers and to divide the load over servers in all kinds of ways."
"It has good stability of the application server in the long term compared to other solutions."
"Starting with version 8, WAS provides a special folder called monitor deployment. Once you put the .war or .ear file in there, it is deployed automatically without human intervention. This greatly helps us in our continuous integration server. Once the deployment binary is ready, we write a script to copy it to that folder and then, voila! The application is up and running and accessible from its context root."
"IBM WebSphere Application Server is easy to use."
"IBM WAS is the backbone for our enterprise content management suite which delivers the primary processes for our customers. Without a good application server, it would be hard to provide a secure layer of midddleware upon which the other applications run. IBM WAS improves the stability of the entire solution and provides a high quality platform for running web-based solutions."
"The performance is good."
"The load balancing module, which is equivalent to LTM, is the focus of the PSE. So far, the features of both are identical. I believe NGINX has more features for securing these services, but in terms of load balancing, both are massive solutions."
"I think installation only took a couple of minutes — no more than 10 minutes."
"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.​"
"The product is resilient."
"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."
"Valuable features include authentication, caching, reverse proxy routing, and load balancing."
 

Cons

"The installation has room for improvement."
"Initial setup is very simple. Just use the IBM Installation Manager and add the packages. The install wizard takes care of the rest. The only thing that can be difficult is to find the right packages on the IBM website, because of all the changes that IBM does on its website(s)."
"When we run into memory or locking issues, we resort to using third-party tools. However, it would be preferable to have native tools for debugging this type of problem."
"The footprint could be reduced so that we can use a smaller virtual machine to run the application. We could also use more scripts. I would like this solution to be more script oriented, rather than GUI oriented."
"The security could be better."
"The main issue we faced was its limited compatibility with non-Java technologies, which can result in difficulty detecting potential bugs and requiring additional integration efforts."
"Based on the field and based on the build that was provided, we've noticed a lot of constraints in terms of the performance now."
"Installing or configuring a WAS server instance as a Windows Service causes a lot of problems, especially when the server needs credentials to stop."
"It would be great if there was even more automation to make it even easier to maintain."
"I would like the configuration process to be more simplified."
"The center management system could be improved."
"The solution must improve its performance."
"It would be good if NGINX provided a graphical user interface."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing model."
"Our most challenging part was to run an older PHP website reverse-proxied through NGINX. That was not fun."
"Improvement needed in NGINX Plus could focus on optimizing memory usage for users."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is very expensive."
"The price of IBM WebSphere Application Server could be less expensive and there is an annual license required for this solution."
"If your application is just a web app that does not need to scale big, you can obtain a single core license of WAS Express edition, which has almost the same features with limited processing cores. If you manage a very big application farm (i.e. need to run 10 or more WAS servers) it is better to get IBM WAS Hypervisor Edition."
"Room for improvement would only be in the licensing. As with all IBM products the licensing can be complex and expensive. Bargain well and try to get as much discount as possible. Discounts of 85% are possible. Without the discount, I think the product is overrated."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"The licensing policy is based on the PVU base."
"It costs more than some of the others, but, you get what you pay for."
"IBM WAS base is part of the deal when you purchase IBM FileNet P8 Content Engine."
"The price is the cost to contract support with a specialized company, usually during consulting hours.​"
"You pay for each feature that you want."
"The solution is free, but you can spend a lot of money with a complex solution."
"It's an open source solution, so it's free."
"There's an open-source version of NGINX that is free."
"The cost is reasonable."
"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."
"I use the solution's community edition which is free of cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
32%
Computer Software Company
12%
Insurance Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
17%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM WebSphere Application Server?
Network Deployment is the most useful feature for scalability. It has many features within the standard WebSphere Application Server edition.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM WebSphere Application Server?
The product is expensive. I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.
What needs improvement with IBM WebSphere Application Server?
I think in some moments, the security was a little bit more complex to configure when it was delegated to other systems, making it an area where improvements are required.
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?
NGINX is not cost-effective, especially for few applications, and is considered higher-priced.
 

Also Known As

WebSphere Application Server
NGINX
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

TalkTalk, Property management group, E.SUN Bank, Ohio National Financial Services, Aviarc, Cincom Systems, FJA-US, D+H, Staples, Michigan Municipal League
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 IBM WebSphere Application Server vs. NGINX Plus and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.