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Azul Zulu vs NGINX Plus comparison

 

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
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
AI Customer Experience Personalization (21st), AI Content Creation (11th)
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 June 2026, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of Azul Zulu is 3.7%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX Plus is 7.9%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NGINX Plus7.9%
Azul Zulu3.7%
Other88.4%
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

"We've had no issues with stability."
"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."
"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."
"Load-balancer feature, because I tried to do same with Apache 2.0 and HAProxy without sucess."
"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."
"NGINX Plus' most valuable feature is the ingress controller."
"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."
"Its versatility and capabilities make it invaluable for implementing patches and fixes when necessary."
"-"
"The primary valuable feature of NGINX for me is its ability to provide a reverse proxy."
 

Cons

"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."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing model."
"The solution needs to be easier to setup and deploy."
"The center management system was not very good, maybe their new NGINX manager product is better."
"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. ​"
"One area of improvement could be that NGINX could provide a means to generate self-signed SSL certificates."
"I would suggest adding GUI-based configuration panels to NGINX Plus to simplify setup and management tasks."
"I would like it to have a more user-friendly graphical interface."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"​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."
"HAProxy is cheaper than NGINX."
"It's an open source solution, so it's free."
"I am not so happy with their pricing policy, but this is not the worse thing in my life. I can tolerate it."
"The solution is free, but you can spend a lot of money with a complex solution."
"Nginx is free. I don't have experience with the Plus version."
"The cost is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
28%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Construction 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....
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
NGINX
 

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: June 2026.
899,283 professionals have used our research since 2012.