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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)
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of Kemp LoadMaster is 7.3%, up from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX Plus is 8.4%, down from 9.3% 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 security features, load balancing, built-in templates, and the easy to implement virtual IPs are great."
"The pricing of the solution is valuable."
"The feature that allows us to easily disconnect a server when we need and bring back online is the most valuable. It's a click of a button. This allows us to keep all systems up. We can then run updates, perform reboots whatever we need to one of the servers without taking production down."
"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."
"Using Kemp as a front-facing service appliance, it allows me to have the flexibility of swapping out real servers behind the scenes without any intervention from my network team."
"It is an easy-to-use, user-friendly interface, and you can set up a new VIP in a couple of minutes."
"The DNS Load Balancer makes it so that I don't have to worry about site failures."
"The most valuable feature that I found is the load balancing feature, it is the core function of the product."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is simple to configure."
"Nginx is simple to configure, very stable in a highly utilized environment and very modular, allowing DevOps to create it's own modules for interactive use with Nginx."
"I think installation only took a couple of minutes — no more than 10 minutes."
"It performs very well. That's one of the primary reasons we use NGINX."
"The product is lightweight and fast."
"NGINX Plus' most valuable feature is the ingress controller."
"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."
"​The flexibility of its modules allow it to be scalable.​"
 

Cons

"I really don't like the way the logs are presented in the software."
"Hardware version needs a dual power solution."
"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."
"There are some challenges with updates on certain models that don't have a few features."
"Several elements of the GUI need work. For example, if you have many content switches, it’s difficult to find the ones you need. And where is the search feature?"
"It would be nice if the historical metrics were easily exportable from the interface."
"I think there should be more visual instructions on how to configure advanced features."
"The cost of the GEO upgrade is not cost-prohibitive but it's something that would be a nice add-in, out of the box."
"I would like it to have a more user-friendly graphical interface."
"One area of improvement could be that NGINX could provide a means to generate self-signed SSL certificates."
"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."
"The solution needs to be easier to setup and deploy."
"Lack of a feature to print data on the terminal for verification of network traffic during debugging and testing."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing model."
"I would like to see the Grafana integration in NGINX which is already present in HAProxy. Grafana integration will help the solution visualize all the data analytics on the dashboard which is currently not present."
"One area of improvement could be that NGINX could provide a means to generate self-signed SSL certificates."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license varies according to the number of megabits."
"From a cost perspective, Kemp is very competitive and is not hard to justify by any means."
"It is well-priced and licensing is very flexible."
"Currently, no cost is involved with a virtual load balancer. They have used open source. We did not pay for software. We paid for the expertise. We are only paying the consulting charges, which are very reasonable, that is, around a thousand dollars."
"It has a great price for the solution they offer."
"Setup is easy, the cost is affordable, and the licensing is quick and simple."
"The price is lower than other options."
"Nowadays, going with the virtual appliance is the easiest way and the cost is reasonable."
"I am not so happy with their pricing policy, but this is not the worse thing in my life. I can tolerate it."
"HAProxy is cheaper than NGINX."
"The solution is free, but you can spend a lot of money with a complex solution."
"The list price of NGINX Plus is close to $5,500."
"​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 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."
"You pay for each feature that you want."
"There's an open-source version of NGINX that is free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
65%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
3%
Financial Services Firm
3%
Financial Services Firm
17%
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 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.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.