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IBM DataPower Gateway vs NGINX Plus 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

IBM DataPower Gateway
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (6th), SOA Application Gateways (2nd), API Management (12th)
NGINX Plus
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IBM DataPower Gateway is 4.6%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX Plus is 10.1%, down from 11.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

Mehdi El Filahi - PeerSpot reviewer
Security features meets compliance needs and offers MPGW (Multi-Protocol Gateway) that simplifies integration efforts
While I like IBM products, I'm not an evangelist. I work with Java, Microsoft ASP.NET, and various technologies. I'm not tied to any specific vendor. However, I do find IBM to be a bit greedy. It's a large, profit-driven company. The support team is mostly based in India, and they follow a very structured process and protocol. Sometimes, it feels like playing ping pong with them – lots of back and forth before the problem gets escalated. You might even have to get your sales rep involved to push things along. For me, the support it could be better. Indian support teams aren't inherently bad, but with IBM, it feels impersonal. They respond, sure. But if it's a complex technical issue, they might ask you a lot of questions that just seem designed to waste your time. Sometimes it feels like they hope you'll get frustrated and solve the problem yourself.
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

"The product's most valuable features are AAA policies and security features."
"The solution is straightforward and for large organizations, it functions well."
"The performance is good. It's been very stable."
"I like the API Gateway feature."
"The MPGW (Multi-Protocol Gateway) is great because it allows you to easily expose services using various protocols – web services, REST (JSON), and others. This flexibility simplifies things."
"What I like most is the stability."
"I like that it is very stable, and we never experience any downtime."
"The most valuable features for our business include the ability to monitor and log data transactions and handle multiple request at an enterprise level."
"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."
"It's lightweight software that can handle heavy loads efficiently."
"I think installation only took a couple of minutes — no more than 10 minutes."
"This solution has everything."
"The web proxy and the database proxy are excellent."
"Application Gateway with application-level firewall tool and load distributor and balancer (also serves for A/B testing)."
"NGINX Plus' most valuable feature is the ingress controller."
"Nginx is extremely efficient in terms of the connection rate to the CPU cycles ratio, and in terms of the bandwidth to CPU cycles."
 

Cons

"DataPower isn't the most user-friendly tool. It is not an easy tool to use. Some things could use better wizards to guide you through processes."
"The two biggest issues of this solution are the complexity and the maintenance procedures."
"In terms of OEM support, it is poor. If I raise a CBRT one, as per the SLA, they should respond in one hour, however, sometimes it takes four or five hours to respond."
"In the next release, I would like to see the product price reduced. It should be cheaper."
"It is a costly product."
"They should improve the solution's clustering features."
"They should add features to manage API integrations."
"Additional documentation needs to be provided for complex automations."
"NGINX Plus is moderately priced, but it could give better value for money."
"NGINX is a very basic load balancer and cannot do as many customizations as F5."
"The KPI should be more focused on load balancing and the latency in application calling from the end system."
"I would like the configuration process to be more simplified."
"The solution's GUI is an area with certain shortcomings that need improvement."
"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."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing model."
"The solution must improve its performance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's initial costing is expensive for small banks and financial institutions."
"Most customers' use case budgets are not inlined with the price of IBM DataPower Gateway. It is too expensive."
"The cost of this product varies from customer to customer and the relationship with IBM, including how many offerings from IBM are already being used."
"The cost is very high and requires all five components in the API management solution."
"The appliance is a bit on the expensive side for the workloads that are not too high."
"The total cost of IBM DataPower Gateway would depend on the configuration, but in my experience, it can amount to 60,000 Euros per box, even for the virtual version. Usually, customers need high availability and a non-production environment, so the total price for IBM DataPower Gateway can be quite a lot. It can be 200,000 Euros or a similar figure."
"This product is a bit expensive as IBM products are costly assets. However, for enterprise customers it is a worthwhile investment."
"As far as I know, they have a perpetual license for this product. They are paying perpetual fees rather than an annual subscription or annual pricing."
"HAProxy is cheaper than NGINX."
"The list price of NGINX Plus is close to $5,500."
"I am not so happy with their pricing policy, but this is not the worse thing in my life. I can tolerate it."
"It's an open source solution, so it's free."
"Nginx is free. I don't have experience with the Plus version."
"The cost is reasonable."
"​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. ​"
"The price is the cost to contract support with a specialized company, usually during consulting hours.​"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
29%
Insurance Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM DataPower Gateway?
The MPGW (Multi-Protocol Gateway) is great because it allows you to easily expose services using various protocols – web services, REST (JSON), and others. This flexibility simplifies things.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM DataPower Gateway?
I would rate the pricing a two out of ten, with one being high price, and ten being low price. It's high-priced for smaller companies. But it is okay for enterprises. So, the price could be more fl...
What needs improvement with IBM DataPower Gateway?
The DCDR process should be less complex. AI should improve developer efficiency and effort. Whenever I am writing code, it should give recommendations automatically by incorporating AI so I can wri...
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

WebSphere DataPower, IBM DataPower, IBM WebSphere DataPower
NGINX
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

RBL Bank, Availity
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 IBM DataPower Gateway vs. NGINX Plus and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.