IIS vs NGINX Plus comparison

Microsoft and F5 are both solutions in the Application Infrastructure category. Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.5, while F5 is ranked #4 with an average rating of 7.8. Microsoft holds a 10.4% mindshare in AIS, compared to F5’s 9.0% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of F5 users who would recommend it.

IIS

Read 61 IIS reviews

3,518 Views
2,322 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

NGINX Plus

Read 32 NGINX Plus reviews

3,930 Views
1,533 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

IIS

NGINX Plus

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

IIS and NGINX Plus are key players in the web server solutions category. IIS holds the upper hand in Microsoft-centric environments due to its seamless Windows Server integration, while NGINX Plus excels in high-traffic, flexible deployment scenarios.

Features: IIS offers smooth integration with Microsoft products, ease of managing applications, and security features like bandwidth control without extra licensing costs. NGINX Plus stands out with robust reverse proxy capabilities, efficient load balancing, and extensive configuration options, catering to businesses needing advanced traffic management.

Room for Improvement: IIS requires advancements in security management, scalability, and cross-platform compatibility, along with better monitoring and troubleshooting. NGINX Plus presents challenges due to its complex setup and module configuration, suggesting the need for improved GUI support and pricing models.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IIS benefits from Microsoft's extensive support network, yet user feedback is mixed regarding responsiveness. NGINX Plus extends more into cloud environments, although relying on community forums for support emphasizes the need for more structured assistance.

Pricing and ROI: IIS offers cost-effectiveness when included with Windows Server licenses, making it attractive for businesses within Microsoft ecosystems. NGINX Plus, with a separate license, is viewed as costly but justified by its advanced infrastructure management capabilities, with the open-source version providing a cost-effective alternative.

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

Buyer's Guide

IIS vs. NGINX Plus

February 2026

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Helped 882,103 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score

5.7

Network authentication improved, offering affordability and ROI, though user-friendly enhancements for IIS novices are needed.

Sentiment score

7.5

NGINX Plus boosts website speed and reduces costs, offering superior flexibility and scalability, ensuring significant returns for organizations.

It should be more user-friendly overall, because unless you know how IIS works as a Microsoft product, a system admin cannot just manage it.

Krishnakumar Natarajan

Systems Engineer at Atos

For more quotes and insights, download the IIS report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the NGINX Plus report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.5

Users report mixed experiences with Microsoft support, often favoring community resources, but praise premium plan responsiveness.

Sentiment score

6.9

NGINX Plus offers robust support with responsive engineers, though some lower-tier licenses experience delayed responses; documentation often suffices.

There are typically no significant issues.

Ibrahim Sherif

IT System Administrator at Bouri

Microsoft provides a lot of online documentation to consult before speaking to an expert.

reviewer1256511

Relationship Manager at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

I would rate the support from Microsoft very high because I definitely got all the help during the testing time of the development kit while we were configuring features on our on-premises server.

Krishnakumar Natarajan

Systems Engineer at Atos

For more quotes and insights, download the IIS report

Response time is good because they have assigned and dedicated support engineers to us, and we have weekly cadence calls.

Nadeem-Inamdar

Senior Information Security Engineer at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the NGINX Plus report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.1

IIS scalability is mixed; effective with clustering and load balancing, but larger scales may need extra infrastructure or cloud migration.

Sentiment score

7.7

NGINX Plus is highly scalable and flexible, easily adapting to various enterprise needs and supporting multiple users and websites.

Cloud solutions may have better scalability options compared to IIS.

Juan Pablo Lauterio

Chief Technology Officer at EVtech

It depends on the server environment and the presence of a UPS for power backup.

Ibrahim Sherif

IT System Administrator at Bouri

I would rate the scalability of IIS as a six, mainly due to integration issues since it cannot integrate with other environments.

reviewer1256511

Relationship Manager at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the IIS report

While some people use NGINX for web servers, my current use case focuses on networking and tunneling, which does not necessitate much scaling.

Michael Olayemi

Senior Software Engineer at Checkit

For more quotes and insights, download the NGINX Plus report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.8

IIS is praised for enterprise stability, though occasionally challenged by application pool interactions and non-Microsoft technology compatibility.

Sentiment score

7.8

NGINX Plus is highly stable and reliable, praised for connectivity and performance, despite some scalability challenges in clustering.

It was secured for us, as we launched the product, and people were accessing it from India and Virginia, and we had no problem.

Krishnakumar Natarajan

Systems Engineer at Atos

I would give it a nine out of ten for stability.

reviewer1256511

Relationship Manager at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

You can check the memory consumption and the number of crashes.

Frederic Hautecoeur

Senior System Integrations Architect at bs-team

For more quotes and insights, download the IIS report

I require ninety-nine point nine percent uptime, and NGINX has been pivotal in helping me achieve this along with our other DNS services.

Michael Olayemi

Senior Software Engineer at Checkit

For more quotes and insights, download the NGINX Plus report

Room For Improvement

IIS struggles with compatibility, security, usability, and integration issues, inconsistent performance, costly licensing, and limited technical support.

NGINX Plus users seek improved scalability, user-friendly interface, better integration, cost-effectiveness, advanced features, and enhanced support services.

It should be more user-friendly because unless you know how IIS works as a Microsoft product, a system admin cannot just manage it.

Krishnakumar Natarajan

Systems Engineer at Atos

If I compare IIS to other web servers such as Apache, which can be deployed in other environments like Linux, I find IIS is mostly used for simple things.

reviewer1256511

Relationship Manager at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

Integrating Copilot could help automate processes or assist in identifying where to make actions or take actions on the server.

Juan Pablo Lauterio

Chief Technology Officer at EVtech

For more quotes and insights, download the IIS report

NGINX could provide a means to generate self-signed SSL certificates.

Michael Olayemi

Senior Software Engineer at Checkit

As with any application, there were initial issues, however, after receiving support, everything was rectified.

AnilKumar44

Executive Director at Geojit

There were some vulnerabilities in F5.

Nadeem-Inamdar

Senior Information Security Engineer at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the NGINX Plus report

Setup Cost

Enterprise users find IIS cost-effective within Windows but some see high licensing fees compared to Linux alternatives.

NGINX Plus has a modular licensing model with varying costs, offering value but can be expensive compared to alternatives.

If you have a Windows license, there is no additional cost for IIS.

Ibrahim Sherif

IT System Administrator at Bouri

We never had any pricing issue, but I don't know if it is competitive or not.

Krishnakumar Natarajan

Systems Engineer at Atos

For more quotes and insights, download the IIS report

My use case involves using the free and open-source version of NGINX, making it cost-effective as I haven't incurred any costs.

Michael Olayemi

Senior Software Engineer at Checkit

The solution offers a cost advantage.

AnilKumar44

Executive Director at Geojit

For more quotes and insights, download the NGINX Plus report

Valuable Features

IIS offers seamless Microsoft integration, robust management, enhanced security, resource efficiency, user-friendly interface, and robust web hosting support.

NGINX Plus excels in load balancing, security, and integration, praised for simplicity, efficiency, and superior traffic management features.

It is easy to publish websites with SSL, and it integrates well within the local environment and cloud.

Ibrahim Sherif

IT System Administrator at Bouri

IIS is free.

Frederic Hautecoeur

Senior System Integrations Architect at bs-team

Entra ID functions as the security front-end for all user management and identity management with Azure.

Juan Pablo Lauterio

Chief Technology Officer at EVtech

For more quotes and insights, download the IIS report

For API management, the WebSocket, and the WebServer, NGINX provides a cost advantage, value addition, and effective support.

AnilKumar44

Executive Director at Geojit

The web application firewall feature has helped enhance security for our applications because most of the attacks which are performed on our website are being blocked by it.

Nadeem-Inamdar

Senior Information Security Engineer at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the NGINX Plus report

Categories and Ranking

IIS

Ranking in Application Infrastructure

1st

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Server (4th)

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)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IIS is 10.4%, down from 12.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX Plus is 9.0%, down from 11.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Infrastructure Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IIS	10.4%
NGINX Plus	9.0%
Other	80.6%

Application Infrastructure

Featured Reviews

Krishnakumar Natarajan

Systems Engineer at Atos

Designs and manages multiple websites while ensuring data backup and disaster recovery

I have experience with AWS, and I am most familiar with the server environment, as we just use the server environment and then use Microsoft products on an AWS environment. I have experience with Windows Server IIS, which I ran on my own on-premise data center. The website was developed and then hosted, and through IIS, we managed the servers. The manageability within the IIS environment is not very difficult. For server management, you need to ensure data backup, data restore, and you have a DR configured to keep the database intact. It was done on-premises, so I had no problem doing that. If you have to go to the cloud, then you should have the storage connected to the IIS server and also have a DR set up for that. I didn't use Microsoft Azure tools, but since it is a Microsoft product, Azure has all the portability, so you don't have to worry about compatibility on the cloud. On a scale of 1-10, I would rate this solution a 10.

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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.

Read full review

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

Government

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	29
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	22

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

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 IIS?

The product is flexible.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IIS?

For the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for IIS, as a Microsoft product, I didn't think much about separately purchasing an IIS product as it is part of Microsoft Windows. We bought a developmen...

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What do you like most about NGINX Plus?

It performs very well. That's one of the primary reasons we use NGINX.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NGINX Plus?

Pricing is reasonable and that is fine.

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What needs improvement with NGINX Plus?

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Comparisons

Apache Web Server vs IIS

Compared 22% of the time

Tomcat vs IIS

Compared 7% of the time

Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (EAP) vs IIS

Compared 6% of the time

Oracle WebLogic Server vs IIS

Compared 5% of the time

Oracle Application Server vs IIS

Compared 5% of the time

More IIS Competitors

Apache Web Server vs NGINX Plus

Compared 12% 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

Kemp LoadMaster vs NGINX Plus

Compared 5% of the time

More NGINX Plus Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IIS

January 2026

Download IIS product report

Buyer's Guide

NGINX Plus

January 2026

Download NGINX Plus product report

Also Known As

Windows Server IIS

NGINX

Overview

Internet Information Services (IIS) provides a secure, easy-to-manage, modular and extensible platform for reliably hosting websites, services and applications. With IIS, you get choice and control without giving up reliability or security.

Microsoft

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

Erste Bank Group, NJVC, Samsung Electronics, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Tata Steel Europe, Urban Software Institute

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

Buyer's Guide

IIS vs. NGINX Plus

February 2026

Free Report: IIS vs. NGINX Plus

Find out what your peers are saying about IIS vs. NGINX Plus and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.

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