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Kemp LoadMaster 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

Kemp LoadMaster
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
8th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
49
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 February 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of Kemp LoadMaster is 7.5%, up from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX Plus is 8.3%, down from 9.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

PeterForster - PeerSpot reviewer
A highly stable and scalable load-balancing software that offers great technical support
My company is really happy with Kemp LoadMaster as a product. My company is also happy with the support we receive from Kemp LoadMaster. I want Kemp LoadMaster to provide users with better reporting capabilities in relation to TCP packets. In general, the connections that are present in the system require improvement. Feature-wise, Kemp LoadMaster has everything that our company's customers require. Kemp LoadMaster also has features that have supported our company's past projects.
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

"The most valuable feature is the load balancing and allowing for high availability of our web services."
"The most valuable feature so far has been the high-availability options that allowed us to add an additional Kemp LoadMaster VLM virtual appliance into our VMware vSphere environment, to provide failover for our existing LoadMaster."
"Managing and maintaining multiple servers is done in a single place."
"One of the most valuable features I like is the ability to block specific cipher suites like RC4, and older protocols like SSL 3.0."
"Exchange load balancing and reverse proxy for Skype for Business are key features."
"The base feature of Kemp LoadMaster load balancing ticks all the boxes but the most valuable features would be the security features Intrusion Prevention (IPS) and Web Application Firewall (WAF)."
"Security is considered the most effective feature in Kemp LoadMaster."
"The pricing of the solution is valuable."
"​The flexibility of its modules allow it to be scalable.​"
"NGINX Plus also has NGINX App Protect. It's a separate module, which is inspired by the F5 apps."
"Nginx is extremely efficient in terms of the connection rate to the CPU cycles ratio, and in terms of the bandwidth to CPU cycles."
"It's lightweight software that can handle heavy loads efficiently."
"The product is lightweight and fast."
"The best solution, by far, for web traffic control for things in production and just around the house."
"When I worked in a security research center, we tested NGINX to support DoS and DDoS attacks, and its results were great."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is simple to configure."
 

Cons

"Perhaps Kemp could offer some training videos."
"It would be nice if the historical metrics were easily exportable from the interface."
"The auth website of ESP is really lacking. It’s not responsive (mobile friendly) and the procedure of changing the website is difficult. We tend to avoid using pre-auth for that reason."
"I think there should be more visual instructions on how to configure advanced features."
"So far, the only hitch we have run into is that would have been nice to have an easier method to add allow/whitelist entries into the Access Control lists for virtual services."
"In the next release, Kemp should include the ability for LoadMaster to create different DNS record types."
"If I had to change something it would maybe be to have a little better reporting graphics that show more details in the reporting. It seems to be a little small in the graphic, and I'm not sure if possible but maybe a GUI page that one can use to monitor if any server goes down."
"The GUI is rather technical and complex, so it could be improved by making it simpler and more user-friendly."
"The KPI should be more focused on load balancing and the latency in application calling from the end system."
"The scaling should be built into the software rather than configured from an outside source."
"Improvement needed in NGINX Plus could focus on optimizing memory usage for users."
"Initially, I experienced hiccups whenever I installed the application. As with any application, there were initial issues, however, after receiving support, everything was rectified."
"The center management system could be improved."
"Lack of a feature to print data on the terminal for verification of network traffic during debugging and testing."
"It would be good if NGINX provided a graphical user interface."
"The scalability could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is well-priced and licensing is very flexible."
"The price is lower than other options."
"At $2,500 USD, this is absolutely a fantastic buy for the money!"
"From a cost perspective, Kemp is very competitive and is not hard to justify by any means."
"The price is great and the value is definitely there."
"The pricing is alright and we pay a monthly licensing fee"
"​I have control on the licensing and all the prices since I work for a partner.​"
"The setup cost and pricing plan is reasonable and will ultimately give you a worthy return."
"The cost is reasonable."
"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 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."
"The list price of NGINX Plus is close to $5,500."
"​NGINX is a free tool in Brazil. There are some companies which do support it.​"
"You pay for each feature that you want."
"I use the solution's community edition which is free of cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
65%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
3%
University
3%
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 Kemp LoadMaster?
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten...I rate the technical support a ten out of ten...The initial setup of Kemp LoadMaster is very simple.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kemp LoadMaster?
LoadMaster is cheaper than some other solutions. It has a perpetual license, so it's a one-time cost.
What needs improvement with Kemp LoadMaster?
There are some challenges with updates on certain models that don't have a few features. The support team often takes a lot of time to provide resolutions for issues. Also, I could see more capabil...
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

LoadMaster Load Balancer
NGINX
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Kent County Council, KEMP, SMA Solar Technology AG, RT€ Player , Victrix (Quebec, Canada), Texas A&M, Macmillan Cancer Support, Cisco, Austin Bank
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 Kemp LoadMaster vs. NGINX Plus and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.