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NGINX Plus vs Zend PHP Engine comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

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
31
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (6th)
Zend PHP Engine
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of NGINX Plus is 11.4%, down from 11.6% 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 - 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.
SatyendraGupta - PeerSpot reviewer
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.…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I find the solution’s community support and documentation most valuable. Compared to HAProxy, have found a lot of documentation and community support on Quora. If you would be asking me as a developer whether to choose this product, I would recommend this since it has good community support, documentation, and signature updates. The configuration of HAProxy is also very tedious. However, NGINX’s configuration is very simple."
"It's lightweight software that can handle heavy loads efficiently."
"The best solution, by far, for web traffic control for things in production and just around the house."
"Its most valuable features are load balancing and application delivery. This is the most efficient application for these features because of stability and its efficiency."
"NGINX provides a cost advantage, value addition, and effective support."
"When you use NGINX, you have more options and power."
"The product is lightweight and fast."
"​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.​"
"Offers a complete environment to develop PHP applications. It is valuable because it allows you to have a complete stack (PHP, MySQL, Zend Server) enabling the building of a development environment, and to deploy to the production system."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the speed at which it compiles and sends the dynamic cache."
"Zend PHP Engine is more secure than any other framework, and I usually prefer Zend PHP Engine for big applications."
"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."
"This solution is really easy for me to use."
"The fact that it is available open-source is the best feature."
"We have not encountered issues with scalability as long as we effectively use caching to optimize performance of our web applications as well as a proper use of database connectivity."
"Faster web app implementation, when PHP dev is required by customers."
 

Cons

"The biggest room for improvement would be to allow NGINX Core machines to cluster for memory zones in some way with a plug and play module. ​"
"The solution needs to be easier to setup and deploy."
"NGINX is a very basic load balancer and cannot do as many customizations as F5."
"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 scalability could be improved."
"Improvement needed in NGINX Plus could focus on optimizing memory usage for users."
"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."
"A general scripting language should be further developed and should be embedded into it."
"In terms of improvement, it doesn't support concurrent processing. When we want to process anything on a concurrent basis, we have to divide it into a number of things, like a queue, or we have to run it using Cron jobs. We would like to have the capability to run any thread or process in parallel."
"Zend PHP Engine needs to improve the loading time of its libraries and make it faster."
"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.​​"
"Integrating AI tools would make PHP more competitive, as other tools already have AI features."
"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.​"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You pay for each feature that you want."
"I am not so happy with their pricing policy, but this is not the worse thing in my life. I can tolerate it."
"There's an open-source version of NGINX that is free."
"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. ​"
"I use the solution's community edition which is free of cost."
"​NGINX is a free tool in Brazil. There are some companies which do support it.​"
"Nginx is free. I don't have experience with the Plus version."
"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."
"The solution is open source and you just pay for the server cost."
"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."
"Its pricing depends on the number of users."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
University
10%
Government
10%
 

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,...
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.
What do you like most about Zend PHP Engine?
The fact that it is available open-source is the best feature.
What needs improvement with Zend PHP Engine?
Integrating AI tools would make PHP more competitive, as other tools already have AI features.
 

Also Known As

NGINX
PHP Engine
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Locaweb, AppNexus, Wix, Reliam, Montana Interactive, MuleSoft, Warpwire, Discovery Education, InkaBinka, WordPress.com, Gogo, GOV.UK, NASA
Cisco
Find out what your peers are saying about NGINX Plus vs. Zend PHP Engine and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.