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Loadbalancer.org 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

Loadbalancer.org
Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
12th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
23
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 March 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of Loadbalancer.org is 3.4%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX Plus is 8.1%, down from 9.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

Roger Seelaender - PeerSpot reviewer
Great WAF - low-maintenance solution that performs as advertised
The solution can be improved with the development of a SIP engine because it is difficult to manage SBCs. All SBCs are really tough to write rules for. If we could put this in front of an SBC to have the right rules to possibly block the traffic, that would be very helpful. The solution can also improve the relationship between Loadbalancer.org and Metaswitch, or now, Microsoft because Metaswitch was purchased by Microsoft. They both position themselves as certified but don't always talk to each other. I wish there would be closer integration between the solution and the vendors when either release new upgrades to their product line. Often we find issues on either end post upgrades.
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 features of Loadbalancer.org are related to its load balancing capabilities."
"The load balancers have an easy installation and a relatively simple, easy user interface to use."
"It's pretty much a Swiss Army knife for managing all the load balancing techniques."
"With basic network knowledge, our required system functionality can be configured and maintained.​"
"For now, it's stable."
"The user interface precludes need to be well versed with Linux IPVS command line. This make it easy for junior team members to participate in managing load balancing needs."
"The performance is good."
"The support we have received from Loadbalancer.org has been good."
"Application Gateway with application-level firewall tool and load distributor and balancer (also serves for A/B testing)."
"The most valuable features are the gateway and the ability to publish to sites."
"The overall product rating is ten out of ten."
"It performs very well. That's one of the primary reasons we use NGINX."
"Using NGINX Plus for web traffic distribution is fantastic. It offers performance similar to physical load balancers but with added flexibility."
"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 robust software architecture allows for it to be scalable and very stable."
"I think installation only took a couple of minutes — no more than 10 minutes."
 

Cons

"I'd like to see scalability improved; it can be costly."
"There is room for improvement in Loadbalancer.org in certain areas."
"They're mostly designed to balance a particular type of traffic. I wanted to load balance DNS, and they just don't do it the way that we wanted to. So they're not used as DNS load balancers."
"The configuration is somewhat complicated. Someone who does not know the solution may find this challenging."
"Possibly a more graphical overview page (with colors) to give a two second overview to see if everything is working fine."
"​I would like a notification when a new version of the software is available. They told me to sign up for their newsletter, but I have not received any notification for a newer software version.​"
"Compared to the physical products, the solution's throughput is a little less."
"There are many features you can set in the backend of Loadbalancer. They should simplify the configuration. The administrator should be able to configure it more simply. How it is now, you can only configure it if you have a lot of experience."
"I would like the configuration process to be more simplified."
"If NGINX brings some features for health check in the open source version, it would be better. ​"
"The KPI should be more focused on load balancing and the latency in application calling from the end system."
"The scalability could be improved."
"The solution needs to be easier to setup and deploy."
"One area of improvement could be that NGINX could provide a means to generate self-signed SSL certificates."
"It would be good if NGINX provided a graphical user interface."
"NGINX is a very basic load balancer and cannot do as many customizations as F5."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I love that they do not price on some arbitrary throughput rating where you are guessing at what the load balancer is going to handle."
"It is inexpensive, and even their “unlimited” version, the VA MAX is still far cheaper than competitors."
"They're not the cheapest, not the most expensive, but I think value-wise, they're 100%."
"The solution requires an annual support license of $2,780 for four systems or $695 a year per unit for support not including the units."
"The costs associated with Loadbalancer.org depends on the technology. For some, we need to pay, but others are open, so they're free."
"These guys make their pricing scheme really easy.​"
"I’m not entirely sure about the rating since I'm not very technical. I haven't thoroughly compared the ratings. So, if you're asking for my impression so far, I would rate it around five out of 10."
"It was easy to upgrade the license for unlimited clusters and servers. Pricing is fair."
"The price is the cost to contract support with a specialized company, usually during consulting hours.​"
"I use the solution's community edition which is free of cost."
"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."
"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. ​"
"Compared to other similar solutions on the market, I think it's over-priced."
"Nginx is free. I don't have experience with the Plus version."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Government
9%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Do you recommend Loadbalancer.org?
Since Loadbalancer.org is an open-source solution, I would recommend this solution for smaller businesses that don’t have major scaling requirements and don’t have the budget for a commercial solut...
What do you like most about Loadbalancer.org?
Existing customers are trying to migrate from the physical F5 load balancer to the AVI load balancer because it is scalable and easily managed.
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

No data available
NGINX
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Vodafone, NASA, Mercedes, NBC, Siemens, AT&T, Barclays, Zurich, Penn State University, Fiserv, Canon, Toyota, University of Cambridge, US Army, US Navy, Ocean Spray, ASOS, Pfizer, BBC, Bacardi, Monsoon, River Island, U.S Air Force, King's College London, NHS, Ricoh, Philips, Santander, TATA Communications, Ericcson, Ross Video, Evertz, TalkTalk TV, Giacom, Rapid Host.
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 Loadbalancer.org vs. NGINX Plus and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.