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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
7.8
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IBM WebSphere Application Server is 10.5%, up from 10.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX Plus is 11.5%, down from 12.9% 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

"Ease of administration: It has an Integrated Solutions Console, what we call the administrative console, with very detailed configurations and Help pages for each configurable item."
"IBM WAS is extremely scalable. It is easy to add additional servers and to divide the load over servers in all kinds of ways."
"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."
"Without the Admin Console it would be very hard to configure JVM settings, JDBC datasources, mail session settings, and security providers."
"The solution is very stable and robust."
"High availability, alert management, and deployments are the most valuable features for us. We have the ND version so we can do deployments."
"Network Deployment is the most useful feature for scalability. It has many features within the standard WebSphere Application Server edition."
"The thing about WebSphere, as opposed to other ones that I am aware of such as JBoss and Liberty, is that WebSphere has the most comprehensive scaffolding available to it."
"I find the solution’s community support and documentation most valuable. Compared to HAProxy, have found a lot of documentation and community support on Quora. If you would be asking me as a developer whether to choose this product, I would recommend this since it has good community support, documentation, and signature updates. The configuration of HAProxy is also very tedious. However, NGINX’s configuration is very simple."
"The web proxy and the database proxy are excellent."
"Valuable features include authentication, caching, reverse proxy routing, and load balancing."
"With NGINX, I appreciate its ability to route traffic geographically."
"The product is lightweight and fast."
"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."
"Application Gateway with application-level firewall tool and load distributor and balancer (also serves for A/B testing)."
"When you use NGINX, you have more options and power."
 

Cons

"Some things are very difficult to do, so the interface and usage could be more intuitive for those."
"The current trend is to move to Liberty because of the portability of its cloud and its Kubernetes, which containerize the application."
"Sometimes, I feel WebSphere runs a bit slow. It might be loading unnecessary libraries, impacting its performance compared to other application servers."
"The business logic side of it is sort of missing in the sense that if I want to track and measure velocity, it is not really available. You have to buy another application and embark on a separate implementation. Instead of having different licensing, IBM DataPower should be integrated with WebSphere. It will allow us to build the business layer and rules a lot more efficiently, rather than developing rules within the application. It would be good if we can set up the business layer through parametrization rather than development. IBM DataPower has the business rule and the controls, and if it can be integrated, it would be fantastic. It will help the application in working better in terms of security features and business logic. If you're going to use it for open banking, you will be able to monitor velocity on the total pricing."
"The licensing could be improved, and I would like it to give the longevity of the lifespan of the visions. In the next release, I would like to be able to download and extract the files so that I can just use my application server."
"The security could be better."
"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 solution could improve the integration."
"It would be good if NGINX provided a graphical user interface."
"The scalability could be improved."
"The drawback is that you must obtain a license for everything."
"The scaling should be built into the software rather than configured from an outside source."
"It would be great if there was even more automation to make it even easier to maintain."
"Our most challenging part was to run an older PHP website reverse-proxied through NGINX. That was not fun."
"Only improvement needed that I would point to is scalability. With it, I mean clusterized organisation on a low level. At the moment, the best alternative is RHEL HA."
"NGINX Plus is moderately priced, but it could give better value for money."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing policy is based on the PVU base."
"We used to pay about $100,000-$120,000 US or somewhere around there. That was a bit cost-prohibitive for us to continue."
"We pay around $200,000 annually."
"It's expensive."
"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."
"When you purchase Maximo, you get WebSphere for free."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"WebSphere Application Server is expensive, so it may not be a good option for small companies."
"​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. ​"
"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.​"
"Compared to other similar solutions on the market, I think it's over-priced."
"You pay for each feature that you want."
"There's an open-source version of NGINX that is free."
"It's an open source solution, so it's free."
"The cost is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
32%
Computer Software Company
12%
Insurance Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
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?
There's an open-source version of NGINX that is free. There's also NGINX Plus, which is a paid version with additional features.
 

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: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.