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Mule ESB 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.6
Calculating ROI from Mule ESB varies, influenced by design strategies, licensing costs, and varying perceptions of its value.
Sentiment score
7.4
NGINX Plus improved website speed, reduced costs, and enhanced application accessibility, offering varied returns despite higher costs than alternatives.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
Mule ESB support varies by subscription, offering quick responses but sometimes lacks depth; forums provide additional insights.
Sentiment score
6.8
Most users rely on community resources and documentation, but those who use technical support rate it effective despite variable response times.
We have a good relationship with our vendor, and they are ready to help us with any technical issues.
The technical support of Mule ESB can be rated from nine to ten.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Mule ESB scales efficiently for diverse enterprises, supporting seamless cloud deployments and handling extensive data through flexible integration.
Sentiment score
8.0
NGINX Plus is highly scalable, adaptable to configurations, and efficiently manages load balancing, especially on AWS or GCP.
Mule ESB is a scalable solution.
While some people use NGINX for web servers, my current use case focuses on networking and tunneling, which does not necessitate much scaling.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
Mule ESB is stable and reliable, despite minor issues with older versions, large files, and clustering.
Sentiment score
7.9
NGINX Plus is stable and reliable with minor concerns, often attributed to configuration, performing well in production environments.
I require ninety-nine point nine percent uptime, and NGINX has been pivotal in helping me achieve this along with our other DNS services.
 

Room For Improvement

Mule ESB users report challenges with documentation, stability, performance, licensing costs, support, and integration, requiring significant improvements.
NGINX Plus needs improvements in scalability, ease of use, pricing, performance, security integration, and standalone deployment options.
More information is needed from MuleSoft.
From my perspective, Mule ESB is lightweight, but it can be improved when it comes to the agility of the system.
NGINX could provide a means to generate self-signed SSL certificates.
As with any application, there were initial issues, however, after receiving support, everything was rectified.
 

Setup Cost

Mule ESB is seen as expensive with flexible pricing and offers support only in the paid Enterprise version.
NGINX offers a free version, while NGINX Plus requires a paid license with flexible, feature-based pricing options.
My use case involves using the free and open-source version of NGINX, making it cost-effective as I haven't incurred any costs.
The solution offers a cost advantage.
 

Valuable Features

Mule ESB provides flexible, high-performance integration with extensive connectivity, DataWeave, API-led architecture, cloud capabilities, and strong support.
NGINX Plus provides efficient load balancing, caching, and security with high performance, modularity, and seamless integration for flexible traffic management.
They have their own language called DataWeave, which helps transform data and is efficient enough to handle any kind of transformation.
The best features of Mule ESB are that it's very robust and solid; I find that even our legacy systems go well with ESB.
For API management, the WebSocket, and the WebServer, NGINX provides a cost advantage, value addition, and effective support.
 

Categories and Ranking

Mule ESB
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (2nd)
NGINX Plus
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (4th), Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Application Integration solutions, they serve different purposes. Mule ESB is designed for Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) and holds a mindshare of 18.0%, down 22.6% compared to last year.
NGINX Plus, on the other hand, focuses on Application Delivery Controllers (ADC), holds 7.5% mindshare, down 8.3% since last year.
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Mule ESB18.0%
IBM Integration Bus21.0%
webMethods.io11.1%
Other49.9%
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
NGINX Plus7.5%
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM)15.9%
NetScaler14.3%
Other62.3%
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

Maharsh-Kapadia - PeerSpot reviewer
Transforms enterprise integration with comprehensive platform and excellent support
The best features of this solution are that everything we get into a single platform, whether it's integration, API, or data modeling; everything is available in one platform. It's a hybrid, including cloud and on-premise solutions with good connectivity and good connectors. From the benefits of using Mule ESB, we could reduce the manual tasks to 50% in one to two years. The cost is still something we are trying to make lower because we see some advantages when we move from point-to-point integration to API-led connectivity. We have seen a lot of reusable assets, so the cost is reduced. Ultimately, we want to see how it's transformed into business revenue; that's what we are still looking into.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise36
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

Migration from IBM Integration Bus to Mulesoft ESB for a large enterprise tech services company
I was previously part of the Oracle SOA/OSB development team. In my current capacity I architected solutions using MuleSoft Anypoint Platform on cloud / on-premises and hybrid modes and on PCE/RTF ...
IBM Integration Bus vs Mule ESB - which to choose?
Our team ran a comparison of IBM’s Integration Bus vs. Mule ESB in order to determine what sort of ESB software was the best fit for our organization. Ultimately we decided to choose IBM Integratio...
What do you like most about Mule ESB?
The solution's drag-and-drop interface and data viewer helped us quite a lot.
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
NGINX
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ube, PacificComp, University of Witwatersrand, Justice Systems, Camelot
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, Salesforce, Oracle and others in Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). Updated: September 2025.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.