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Azul Zulu vs NGINX Plus comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Azul Zulu
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
AI Customer Experience Personalization (25th), AI Content Creation (12th)
NGINX Plus
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of Azul Zulu is 3.6%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX Plus is 7.9%, down from 9.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NGINX Plus7.9%
Azul Zulu3.6%
Other88.5%
Application Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

BasilJiji - PeerSpot reviewer
System engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Standardized our Java estate and have reduced licensing costs while maintaining strong support
Azul Zulu's ability to allow us to standardize our Java estate on a single and well-supported platform stands out as one of its best features. This standardization simplifies our compliance audits and ensures all our applications receive timely security updates.Azul Zulu positively impacts our organization by providing a platform that allows us to standardize Java on a well-supported platform. Without the high cost associated with other proprietary vendors, Azul Zulu provides an excellent platform for running our applications.
Nadeem-Inamdar - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Information Security Engineer at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
Advanced policies and web firewall have strengthened application protection and reduced attack traffic
There were some vulnerabilities in F5. They tried to fix it, but the fixes were not available at the time because they were zero days, so they attempted to fix it, but their support was not proper. Their support should be improved because sometimes features which we need for customization take time, and they are sometimes feasible and sometimes not feasible by the team, so their support and the engineering team should improve their product. I would like to see more features regarding customization which should be built into the application, and the tool optimization should be good, and the dashboard should be more crisp and clear.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I joined this project which had already been underway for approximately six months, and in two months, I refactored the whole project and wrote it, and it is functional."
"We achieved specific outcomes from using Azul Zulu by reducing our Java licensing and support costs by approximately 70% when compared to our previous Oracle contract."
"We've had no issues with stability."
"I think NGINX Plus is one of the most powerful and fittest solutions in this area, and I'd recommend it to others."
"The load balancing module, which is equivalent to LTM, is the focus of the PSE, and so far, the features of both are identical, and I believe NGINX has more features for securing these services, but in terms of load balancing, both are massive solutions."
"Its versatility and capabilities make it invaluable for implementing patches and fixes when necessary."
"Zero Downtime has always been a strength in recommending infrastructure web services, and NGINX allows me to execute such infrastructure with less complications and the ability to switch from server to server easily."
"I receive very good support."
"Load-balancer feature, because I tried to do same with Apache 2.0 and HAProxy without sucess."
"Using NGINX Plus for web traffic distribution is fantastic. It offers performance similar to physical load balancers but with added flexibility."
"The web application firewall feature has helped enhance security for our applications because most of the attacks which are performed on our website are being blocked by it, so the web application firewall is good."
 

Cons

"I think Azul Zulu can be improved by always thinking about productivity, as most languages tend to evolve in that direction."
"It needs a better update daemon. At this time the process is manual and could be an issue on multiple desktop deployments."
"Improvements for Azul Zulu could include more automated tools for unused code visibility integrated directly into the standard portal to help further optimize our cloud footprints."
"I would suggest adding GUI-based configuration panels to NGINX Plus to simplify setup and management tasks."
"Compared to other similar solutions on the market, I think it's over-priced."
"The center management system could be improved."
"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 drawback is that you must obtain a license for everything."
"If NGINX brings some features for health check in the open source version, it would be better. ​"
"They should do in the open source version of what they did to Advanced HTTP, TCP, and UDP load balancing."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"It's an open source solution, so it's free."
"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."
"​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 am not so happy with their pricing policy, but this is not the worse thing in my life. I can tolerate it."
"The cost is reasonable."
"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."
"​NGINX is a free tool in Brazil. There are some companies which do support it.​"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
27%
Construction Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Azul Zulu?
Improvements for Azul Zulu could include more automated tools for unused code visibility integrated directly into the standard portal to help further optimize our cloud footprints. The other core J...
What is your primary use case for Azul Zulu?
Azul Zulu serves as our primary Java runtime, providing a stable, 100% open-source, and certified solution for our production microservices. We utilize it to ensure cross-platform compatibility acr...
What advice do you have for others considering Azul Zulu?
My advice for others looking into using Azul Zulu is to perform a pilot migration with one non-critical application first. You will likely find that it is truly a drop-in replacement, which will gi...
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 needs improvement with NGINX Plus?
There were some vulnerabilities in F5. They tried to fix it, but the fixes were not available at the time because they were zero days, so they attempted to fix it, but their support was not proper....
 

Also Known As

No data available
NGINX, F5 NGINX Plus
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft, Kyocera, OKI, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, Voya Financial
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 Azul Zulu vs. NGINX Plus and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,394 professionals have used our research since 2012.