Barracuda Load Balancer ADC vs NGINX Plus comparison

Barracuda Networks and F5 are both solutions in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category. Barracuda Networks is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.0, while F5 is ranked #8 with an average rating of 7.8. Barracuda Networks holds a 1.9% mindshare in ADC, compared to F5’s 6.4% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Barracuda Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of F5 users who would recommend it.

Barracuda Load Balancer ADC

Read 5 Barracuda Load Balancer ADC reviews

621 Views
602 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

NGINX Plus

Read 32 NGINX Plus reviews

3,866 Views
2,281 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Barracuda Load Balancer ADC

NGINX Plus

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Barracuda Load Balancer ADC and NGINX Plus compete in the application delivery and load-balancing market. NGINX Plus generally holds the upper hand due to its superior performance and scalability features, making it ideal for those prioritizing these aspects.

Features: Barracuda Load Balancer ADC provides robust security features, comprehensive traffic management, and integration with various network environments. NGINX Plus offers high-performance load balancing, advanced application monitoring, and support for microservices architectures, providing flexibility and scalability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Barracuda Load Balancer ADC is known for its straightforward deployment and strong customer support, which aids setup. NGINX Plus, while more complex to deploy, benefits from extensive documentation and a vibrant community for support. Barracuda Load Balancer ADC has an advantage in ease of deployment.

Pricing and ROI: Barracuda Load Balancer ADC is a cost-effective solution with a favorable initial setup cost, leading to better ROI for small to medium enterprises. NGINX Plus, despite its higher initial cost, provides significant long-term benefits for larger organizations seeking tailored solutions, making it a worthwhile investment for those leveraging its full features.

To learn more, read our detailed Barracuda Load Balancer ADC vs. NGINX Plus Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Barracuda Load Balancer ADC vs. NGINX Plus

December 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

Barracuda Load Balancer ADC

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

14th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

NGINX Plus

Ranking in Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

8th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Infrastructure (4th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) category, the mindshare of Barracuda Load Balancer ADC is 1.9%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX Plus is 6.4%, down from 8.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
NGINX Plus	6.4%
Barracuda Load Balancer ADC	1.9%
Other	91.7%

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

Featured Reviews

Moges Bekru

Network and Security Engineer at Malam Engineering PLC

Balances loads efficiently and saves costs but could improve initial setup

The typical use case for Barracuda Load Balancer ADC involves managing and distributing network traffic efficiently to maintain system performance. Clients use Barracuda Load Balancer ADC for its ability to handle and balance loads across servers I have seen improvements in Barracuda Load…

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Michael Olayemi

Senior Software Engineer at Checkit

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.

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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

"The solution is simple and powerful. I find the Barracuda Load Balancer ADC's load balancing function most valuable. It balances the traffic well. The security features, like the Web Application Firewall, are also very helpful."

"Barracuda's technical support is good - whenever we have an issue, they immediately connect and resolve it."

"The most useful features in Barracuda Load Balancer are its security capabilities, load balancing efficiency, and scalability."

"The price is very good, and it's not very expensive."

"I would rate the stability of Barracuda Load Balancer as a ten out of ten; it has high stability."

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

"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."

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

"Supports IMAP, POP and SMTP protocols for the reverse proxy."

"This solution has everything."

"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."

"The best solution, by far, for web traffic control for things in production and just around the house."

"The product is lightweight and fast."

More NGINX Plus pros

Cons

"Load Balancer ADC is competitively priced, but it's not feature-rich, and its technology is not that advanced."

"There are areas of Barracuda Load Balancer's security that have room for improvement, particularly concerning handling traffic."

"The Barracuda Load Balancer ADC could be improved with more customization features. For example, F5 uses iRules for custom configurations. I haven't found something similar in Barracuda yet. The load balancer and WAF's basic and common features are enough, but we need more customization options."

"The quality of the solution's performance could be improved."

"I would suggest adding GUI-based configuration panels to NGINX Plus to simplify setup and management tasks."

"The scalability could be improved."

"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."

"I would like it to have a more user-friendly graphical interface."

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

"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. "

"It would be great if there was even more automation to make it even easier to maintain."

More NGINX Plus cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten."

"Load Balancer ADC is cost-effective and is about half the price of F5."

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

"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."

"The list price of NGINX Plus is close to $5,500."

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

"You pay for each feature that you want."

"HAProxy is cheaper than NGINX."

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

"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. "

More NGINX Plus pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Media Company

Financial Services Firm

University

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	11

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda Load Balancer ADC?

Pricing for Barracuda Load Balancer ADC can be a consideration. However, it offers good value with its cost-saving benefits and efficient operation, balancing the initial financial outlay.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Barracuda Load Balancer ADC?

There are areas of Barracuda Load Balancer's security that have room for improvement, particularly concerning handling traffic. Also, more could be done to enhance the initial setup, as it can be c...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Barracuda Load Balancer ADC?

See all answers

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?

Pricing is reasonable and that is fine.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 28% of the time

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Compared 27% of the time

Kemp LoadMaster vs Barracuda Load Balancer ADC

Compared 12% of the time

Fortinet FortiADC vs Barracuda Load Balancer ADC

Compared 12% of the time

A10 Networks Thunder ADC vs Barracuda Load Balancer ADC

Compared 11% of the time

More Barracuda Load Balancer ADC Competitors

IIS vs NGINX Plus

Compared 18% of the time

Apache Web Server vs NGINX Plus

Compared 15% of the time

HAProxy vs NGINX Plus

Compared 10% of the time

NetScaler vs NGINX Plus

Compared 9% of the time

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

Compared 8% of the time

More NGINX Plus Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)

December 2025

Download Barracuda Load Balancer ADC product report

Buyer's Guide

NGINX Plus

December 2025

Download NGINX Plus product report

Also Known As

Barracuda Load Balancer

NGINX

Overview

Barracuda Load Balancer is ideal for organizations looking for a high-performance, yet cost-effective application delivery and security solution. With the broadest range of hardware and virtual models, Barracuda Load Balancer provides maximum flexibility for organizations looking to build highly secure and scalable application infrastructure, whether it's deployed on-premises or in the cloud.

Barracuda Networks

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.

Sample Customers

Fenwal Blood Technologies

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

Buyer's Guide

Barracuda Load Balancer ADC vs. NGINX Plus

December 2025

Free Report: Barracuda Load Balancer ADC vs. NGINX Plus

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