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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)
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of Loadbalancer.org is 3.7%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX Plus is 7.4%, down from 8.4% 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.
Michael Olayemi - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables public access and secure configurations through reverse proxy
The primary valuable feature of NGINX for me is its ability to provide a reverse proxy. I have found that this feature supports our local server, and I am able to connect through our DNS system, making it accessible publicly. Additionally, the integration with SSL certificates and the configuration capabilities make it a valuable solution for my use case. Without NGINX, users would not be able to access our application, which means there is positive ROI from using NGINX as it is crucial for the functioning of my organization.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Load balancing helps us distribute both incoming and outgoing data loads evenly among the servers, preventing overload on a single server."
"It does what it’s supposed to do which is balancing an important intranet site we are using, so if one server dies, the second becomes active straight away."
"It's pretty much a Swiss Army knife for managing all the load balancing techniques."
"Loadbalancer.org is less complex than Citrix."
"Most important for us that it makes sure that the load is distributed and that we always have access to the end servers."
"The SSL Layer 7 load balancing is valuable."
"We have about 30,000 connections going through at any one time and it's fine, it doesn't seem to sweat. It doesn't get overloaded."
"The most valuable features of Loadbalancer.org are related to its load balancing capabilities."
"The product is resilient."
"Its versatility and capabilities make it invaluable for implementing patches and fixes when necessary."
"The web proxy and the database proxy are excellent."
"I think installation only took a couple of minutes — no more than 10 minutes."
"The robust software architecture allows for it to be scalable and very stable."
"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."
"-"
"NGINX Plus also has NGINX App Protect. It's a separate module, which is inspired by the F5 apps."
 

Cons

"The configuration is somewhat complicated. Someone who does not know the solution may find this challenging."
"The interface from Loadbalancer.org should be improved."
"An area for improvement in Loadbalancer.org is that sometimes it works fine, but sometimes, it has issues. The setup for Loadbalancer.org is also complex, so that's another area for improvement."
"Originally we had some stability issues with it, so they replaced it with a new box and it's fine."
"You can run into an issue when one engineer passes the case over to another engineer after their shift and they don't know what the first engineer worked on up to that point."
"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."
"If I have to say something, I suppose they could add an automated configuration backup to an FTP location (or something similar) so you don’t have to manually do it. I don’t see this as a problem, of course, as the configuration rarely changes and we only need one backup, but maybe for other users that feature would be handy."
"​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.​"
"The solution needs to be easier to setup and deploy."
"I would like the configuration process to be more simplified."
"One area of improvement could be that NGINX could provide a means to generate self-signed SSL certificates."
"The solution's GUI is an area with certain shortcomings that need improvement."
"The scaling should be built into the software rather than configured from an outside source."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing model."
"I would suggest adding GUI-based configuration panels to NGINX Plus to simplify setup and management tasks."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For now, it's stable."
"The costs associated with Loadbalancer.org depends on the technology. For some, we need to pay, but others are open, so they're free."
"Licensing fees are paid annually."
"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's worth the cost. It's not cheap, but it's a good solution. If you're looking for a good solution, this is a good solution. Is it cheap? No. Is it worth the money? Yes, I think it is."
"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."
"We've got an unlimited license, which doesn't costs that much compared to other vendors, and we don't have to buy it again."
"They're not the cheapest, not the most expensive, but I think value-wise, they're 100%."
"It's an open source solution, so it's free."
"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 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."
"I use the solution's community edition which is free of cost."
"You pay for each feature that you want."
"The solution is free, but you can spend a lot of money with a complex solution."
"I am not so happy with their pricing policy, but this is not the worse thing in my life. I can tolerate it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
17%
University
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
17%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

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: June 2025.
860,632 professionals have used our research since 2012.