IIS vs NGINX Plus comparison

Microsoft and F5 are both solutions in the Application Infrastructure category. Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.5, while F5 is ranked #5 with an average rating of 7.6. Microsoft holds a 10.1% mindshare in AIS, compared to F5’s 9.3% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of F5 users who would recommend it.

IIS

Read 61 IIS reviews

3,023 Views
1,995 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

NGINX Plus

Read 32 NGINX Plus reviews

3,808 Views
1,485 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

IIS

NGINX Plus

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 2025

IIS and NGINX Plus compete in the web server market. Based on features, deployment flexibility, and performance, NGINX Plus seems to have the upper hand due to its advanced capabilities and efficient performance.

Features: IIS is well-integrated with Microsoft products and offers features like bandwidth control and application isolation, making it favorable for users within the Windows ecosystem. NGINX Plus provides robust features such as reverse proxying, load balancing, and an advanced authentication system, making it ideal for complex deployments and high-performance requirements.

Room for Improvement: IIS struggles with compatibility and flexibility, especially in non-Windows environments, and needs enhancements in monitoring and debugging. NGINX Plus could improve configuration simplicity and user interfaces and enhance health check features in its open-source version.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IIS is predominantly used in on-premises settings, while NGINX Plus offers deployment versatility across cloud environments. Users of NGINX Plus tend to rely on community support due to less direct interaction with official support, while IIS users report varying experiences with Microsoft’s technical support.

Pricing and ROI: IIS offers competitive pricing, especially when bundled with Windows Server licenses, providing good ROI for businesses integrated with Microsoft. NGINX Plus offers a free open-source version, but premium features can be costly, with its ROI depending heavily on usage scale and deployment needs.

To learn more, read our detailed IIS vs. NGINX Plus Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IIS vs. NGINX Plus

December 2025

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Helped 879,259 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score

5.7

Network authentication improved, offering affordability and ROI, though user-friendly enhancements for IIS novices are needed.

Sentiment score

7.5

NGINX Plus boosts website speed and reduces costs, offering superior flexibility and scalability, ensuring significant returns for organizations.

It should be more user-friendly overall, because unless you know how IIS works as a Microsoft product, a system admin cannot just manage it.

Krishnakumar Natarajan

Systems Engineer at Atos

For more quotes and insights, download the IIS report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the NGINX Plus report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.5

Users report mixed experiences with Microsoft support, often favoring community resources, but praise premium plan responsiveness.

Sentiment score

6.9

NGINX Plus offers robust support with responsive engineers, though some lower-tier licenses experience delayed responses; documentation often suffices.

There are typically no significant issues.

Ibrahim Sherif

IT System Administrator at Bouri

Microsoft provides a lot of online documentation to consult before speaking to an expert.

reviewer1256511

Relationship Manager at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

I would rate the support from Microsoft very high because I definitely got all the help during the testing time of the development kit while we were configuring features on our on-premises server.

Krishnakumar Natarajan

Systems Engineer at Atos

For more quotes and insights, download the IIS report

Response time is good because they have assigned and dedicated support engineers to us, and we have weekly cadence calls.

Nadeem-Inamdar

Senior Information Security Engineer at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the NGINX Plus report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.1

IIS scalability is mixed; effective with clustering and load balancing, but larger scales may need extra infrastructure or cloud migration.

Sentiment score

7.7

NGINX Plus is highly scalable and flexible, easily adapting to various enterprise needs and supporting multiple users and websites.

Cloud solutions may have better scalability options compared to IIS.

Juan Pablo Lauterio

Chief Technology Officer at EVtech

It depends on the server environment and the presence of a UPS for power backup.

Ibrahim Sherif

IT System Administrator at Bouri

I would rate the scalability of IIS as a six, mainly due to integration issues since it cannot integrate with other environments.

reviewer1256511

Relationship Manager at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the IIS report

While some people use NGINX for web servers, my current use case focuses on networking and tunneling, which does not necessitate much scaling.

Michael Olayemi

Senior Software Engineer at Checkit

For more quotes and insights, download the NGINX Plus report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.8

IIS is praised for enterprise stability, though occasionally challenged by application pool interactions and non-Microsoft technology compatibility.

Sentiment score

7.8

NGINX Plus is highly stable and reliable, praised for connectivity and performance, despite some scalability challenges in clustering.

It was secured for us, as we launched the product, and people were accessing it from India and Virginia, and we had no problem.

Krishnakumar Natarajan

Systems Engineer at Atos

I would give it a nine out of ten for stability.

reviewer1256511

Relationship Manager at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

You can check the memory consumption and the number of crashes.

Frederic Hautecoeur

Senior System Integrations Architect at bs-team

For more quotes and insights, download the IIS report

I require ninety-nine point nine percent uptime, and NGINX has been pivotal in helping me achieve this along with our other DNS services.

Michael Olayemi

Senior Software Engineer at Checkit

For more quotes and insights, download the NGINX Plus report

Room For Improvement

IIS struggles with compatibility, security, usability, and integration issues, inconsistent performance, costly licensing, and limited technical support.

NGINX Plus users seek improved scalability, user-friendly interface, better integration, cost-effectiveness, advanced features, and enhanced support services.

It should be more user-friendly because unless you know how IIS works as a Microsoft product, a system admin cannot just manage it.

Krishnakumar Natarajan

Systems Engineer at Atos

If I compare IIS to other web servers such as Apache, which can be deployed in other environments like Linux, I find IIS is mostly used for simple things.

reviewer1256511

Relationship Manager at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

Integrating Copilot could help automate processes or assist in identifying where to make actions or take actions on the server.

Juan Pablo Lauterio

Chief Technology Officer at EVtech

For more quotes and insights, download the IIS report

NGINX could provide a means to generate self-signed SSL certificates.

Michael Olayemi

Senior Software Engineer at Checkit

As with any application, there were initial issues, however, after receiving support, everything was rectified.

AnilKumar44

Executive Director at Geojit

There were some vulnerabilities in F5.

Nadeem-Inamdar

Senior Information Security Engineer at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the NGINX Plus report

Setup Cost

Enterprise users find IIS cost-effective within Windows but some see high licensing fees compared to Linux alternatives.

NGINX Plus has a modular licensing model with varying costs, offering value but can be expensive compared to alternatives.

If you have a Windows license, there is no additional cost for IIS.

Ibrahim Sherif

IT System Administrator at Bouri

We never had any pricing issue, but I don't know if it is competitive or not.

Krishnakumar Natarajan

Systems Engineer at Atos

For more quotes and insights, download the IIS report

My use case involves using the free and open-source version of NGINX, making it cost-effective as I haven't incurred any costs.

Michael Olayemi

Senior Software Engineer at Checkit

The solution offers a cost advantage.

AnilKumar44

Executive Director at Geojit

For more quotes and insights, download the NGINX Plus report

Valuable Features

IIS offers seamless Microsoft integration, robust management, enhanced security, resource efficiency, user-friendly interface, and robust web hosting support.

NGINX Plus excels in load balancing, security, and integration, praised for simplicity, efficiency, and superior traffic management features.

It is easy to publish websites with SSL, and it integrates well within the local environment and cloud.

Ibrahim Sherif

IT System Administrator at Bouri

IIS is free.

Frederic Hautecoeur

Senior System Integrations Architect at bs-team

Entra ID functions as the security front-end for all user management and identity management with Azure.

Juan Pablo Lauterio

Chief Technology Officer at EVtech

For more quotes and insights, download the IIS report

For API management, the WebSocket, and the WebServer, NGINX provides a cost advantage, value addition, and effective support.

AnilKumar44

Executive Director at Geojit

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.

Nadeem-Inamdar

Senior Information Security Engineer at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the NGINX Plus report

Categories and Ranking

IIS

Ranking in Application Infrastructure

1st

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Server (5th)

NGINX Plus

Ranking in Application Infrastructure

5th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IIS is 10.1%, down from 12.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NGINX Plus is 9.3%, down from 11.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Infrastructure Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IIS	10.1%
NGINX Plus	9.3%
Other	80.6%

Application Infrastructure

Featured Reviews

Krishnakumar Natarajan

Systems Engineer at Atos

Designs and manages multiple websites while ensuring data backup and disaster recovery

I have experience with AWS, and I am most familiar with the server environment, as we just use the server environment and then use Microsoft products on an AWS environment. I have experience with Windows Server IIS, which I ran on my own on-premise data center. The website was developed and then hosted, and through IIS, we managed the servers. The manageability within the IIS environment is not very difficult. For server management, you need to ensure data backup, data restore, and you have a DR configured to keep the database intact. It was done on-premises, so I had no problem doing that. If you have to go to the cloud, then you should have the storage connected to the IIS server and also have a DR set up for that. I didn't use Microsoft Azure tools, but since it is a Microsoft product, Azure has all the portability, so you don't have to worry about compatibility on the cloud. On a scale of 1-10, I would rate this solution a 10.

Read full review

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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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Comms Service Provider

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Government

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	29
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	22

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

Questions from the Community

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,...

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What do you like most about IIS?

The product is flexible.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IIS?

For the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for IIS, as a Microsoft product, I didn't think much about separately purchasing an IIS product as it is part of Microsoft Windows. We bought a developmen...

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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?

My use case involves using the free and open-source version of NGINX, making it cost-effective as I haven't incurred any costs.

See all answers

What needs improvement with NGINX Plus?

One area of improvement could be that NGINX could provide a means to generate self-signed SSL certificates. This would eliminate the need to use third-party software such as SaaS Boost for generati...

See all answers

Comparisons

Apache Web Server vs IIS

Compared 27% of the time

Tomcat vs IIS

Compared 8% of the time

Oracle WebLogic Server vs IIS

Compared 6% of the time

Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (EAP) vs IIS

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft .NET Framework vs IIS

Compared 4% of the time

More IIS Competitors

Apache Web Server vs NGINX Plus

Compared 15% of the time

NetScaler vs NGINX Plus

Compared 10% of the time

HAProxy vs NGINX Plus

Compared 9% of the time

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

Compared 9% of the time

Kemp LoadMaster vs NGINX Plus

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IIS

December 2025

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Buyer's Guide

NGINX Plus

December 2025

Download NGINX Plus product report

Also Known As

Windows Server IIS

NGINX

Overview

Internet Information Services (IIS) provides a secure, easy-to-manage, modular and extensible platform for reliably hosting websites, services and applications. With IIS, you get choice and control without giving up reliability or security.

Microsoft

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

Erste Bank Group, NJVC, Samsung Electronics, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Tata Steel Europe, Urban Software Institute

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

Buyer's Guide

IIS vs. NGINX Plus

December 2025

Free Report: IIS vs. NGINX Plus

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