NGINX Plus vs Zend PHP Engine comparison

F5 and Zend are both solutions in the Application Infrastructure category. F5 is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.2, while Zend is ranked #16 with an average rating of 8.0. F5 holds a 11.1% mindshare in AIS, compared to Zend’s 1.6% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Zend users who would recommend it.

NGINX Plus

Read 31 NGINX Plus reviews

2,272 Views
1,894 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Zend PHP Engine

Read 11 Zend PHP Engine reviews

512 Views
221 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

NGINX Plus

Zend PHP Engine

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between NGINX Plus and Zend PHP Engine based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Application Infrastructure solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed NGINX Plus vs. Zend PHP Engine Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

NGINX Plus vs. Zend PHP Engine

March 2025

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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

NGINX Plus

Ranking in Application Infrastructure

2nd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (6th)

Zend PHP Engine

Ranking in Application Infrastructure

16th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of NGINX Plus is 11.1%, down from 11.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zend PHP Engine is 1.6%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Infrastructure

Featured Reviews

Ritesh-Bakhru

Major Account Manager at Check Point Software

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.

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SatyendraGupta

External Consultant (Digital Tool Developer and Intervention Specialist) at IQVIA

The fact that it is available open-source is the best feature

The fact that it is available open-source is the best feature. A general scripting language should be further developed and should be embedded into it. I have been Zend PHP Engine for nine years. Multiple people are using the solution. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"NGINX works much better than HAProxy in our current hardware and architecture for HTTP/HTTPS load balancing. "

"Zero Downtime has always been a strength in recommending infrastructure web services. NGINX allows me to execute such infrastructure with less complications and the ability to switch from server to server easily."

"The flexibility of its modules allow it to be scalable."

"The overall product rating is ten out of ten."

"The primary valuable feature of NGINX for me is its ability to provide a reverse proxy."

"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."

"When you use NGINX, you have more options and power."

"Nginx is extremely efficient in terms of the connection rate to the CPU cycles ratio, and in terms of the bandwidth to CPU cycles."

More NGINX Plus pros

"This solution is really easy for me to use."

"The solution's initial setup process is easy."

"Zend PHP Engine is more secure than any other framework, and I usually prefer Zend PHP Engine for big applications."

"The cache modules that Zend provides have been able to optimize and accelerate the loading of the pages when there was exponential growth in data volume and quantity of requests. At the same time, the monitoring console allowed us to have a real-time understanding of the resources and to make decisions when they were at the limit."

"Zend Engine is the core of PHP. It makes PHP fast, efficient, and basically, the language of choice for web applications."

"Zend Engine gives the flexibility to use external modules to easily expand the functionalities you need for your web project."

"It offers good support for various types of classes, along with many open source libraries that we can readily utilize in our application development process. This gives us a lot of options when it comes to custom development solutions, without having to worry about licensing or other programming-related issues."

"Scaling up is an important factor for large projects, and with PHP 7 and its performance improvements, this becomes even easier."

More Zend PHP Engine pros

Cons

"One area of improvement could be that NGINX could provide a means to generate self-signed SSL certificates."

"The solution needs to be easier to setup and deploy."

"The solution's GUI is an area with certain shortcomings that need improvement."

"The solution must improve its performance."

"One area of improvement could be that NGINX could provide a means to generate self-signed SSL certificates."

"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."

"NGINX is a very basic load balancer and cannot do as many customizations as F5."

"Improvement needed in NGINX Plus could focus on optimizing memory usage for users."

More NGINX Plus cons

"Its object oriented programming language needs improvement."

"The biggest problem with PHP is you have to write lot of conditions or have to use a framework."

"SQL queries have always been an issue with PHP, especially if you use large tables, which require caution from the side of the developer."

"A general scripting language should be further developed and should be embedded into it."

"Although it offers a complete environment to develop and deploy PHP applications, it has some limitations. For example, when the volume of data increased exponentially, I had problems scaling the system."

"The main area that Zend needs to improve is to support asynchronous programming tasks, which is facilitated in PHP 7, but not at the same degree as HHVM."

"The process of installing and configuring the product is a bit complex and could be improved."

"Integrating AI tools would make PHP more competitive, as other tools already have AI features."

More Zend PHP Engine cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is free, but you can spend a lot of money with a complex solution."

"HAProxy is cheaper than NGINX."

"I am not so happy with their pricing policy, but this is not the worse thing in my life. I can tolerate it."

"You pay for each feature that you want."

"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. "

"The price is the cost to contract support with a specialized company, usually during consulting hours."

"There's an open-source version of NGINX that is free."

More NGINX Plus pricing and cost advice

"No problem with pricing and licensing, as tools are open source. You have to consider training cost, mindset setup cost, as part of the TCO."

"The solution is open source and you just pay for the server cost."

"Its pricing depends on the number of users."

"The Zend PHP engine is open source technology, so there's no need for us to worry about licensing or other costs."

"Zend PHP Engine is not an expensive solution."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

17%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Government

13%

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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 NGINX Plus?

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

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What do you like most about Zend PHP Engine?

The fact that it is available open-source is the best feature.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zend PHP Engine?

PHP is an open-source solution.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Zend PHP Engine?

Integrating AI tools would make PHP more competitive, as other tools already have AI features.

See all answers

Comparisons

IIS vs NGINX Plus

Compared 19% of the time

HAProxy vs NGINX Plus

Compared 17% of the time

Kemp LoadMaster vs NGINX Plus

Compared 11% of the time

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) vs NGINX Plus

Compared 10% of the time

NetScaler vs NGINX Plus

Compared 10% of the time

More NGINX Plus Competitors

Apache Web Server vs Zend PHP Engine

Compared 100% of the time

More Zend PHP Engine Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

NGINX Plus

February 2025

Download NGINX Plus product report

Buyer's Guide

Application Infrastructure

February 2025

Download Zend PHP Engine product report

Also Known As

NGINX

PHP Engine

Overview

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.

The Zend PHP Engine is designed to optimize PHP code and improve performance, making it a popular choice for web developers. It is easy to use, stable, does not require a lot of code, is open source, and only requires payment for server costs. The initial setup is straightforward, and there is no real need to set up the solution because it's built into the deployment.

Zend

Sample Customers

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

Cisco

Buyer's Guide

NGINX Plus vs. Zend PHP Engine

March 2025

Free Report: NGINX Plus vs. Zend PHP Engine

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