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NGINX Plus vs Zend PHP Engine 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

NGINX Plus
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (9th)
Zend PHP Engine
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of NGINX Plus is 7.9%, down from 10.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zend PHP Engine is 2.3%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NGINX Plus7.9%
Zend PHP Engine2.3%
Other89.8%
Application Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

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.
MW
CEO at VonatelNetworks
Effective network data analysis with customization capabilities and an open-source model
We use Zend PHP Engine in a government project to develop a tool for network monitoring analysis. We utilize the tool to collect all the network data for a platform PHP allows us to personalize a solution if the customer desires. This flexibility is beneficial. Zend PHP Engine is a good tool for…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"NGINX provides a cost advantage, value addition, and effective support."
"Load-balancer feature, because I tried to do same with Apache 2.0 and HAProxy without sucess."
"I think installation only took a couple of minutes — no more than 10 minutes."
"Its versatility and capabilities make it invaluable for implementing patches and fixes when necessary."
"I would recommend this solution."
"The product is resilient."
"Nginx is extremely efficient in terms of the connection rate to the CPU cycles ratio, and in terms of the bandwidth to CPU cycles."
"NGINX is much easier to deploy and configure, and the skillset required to handle NGINX is more available in the market compared to deploying F5, Radware, or Citrix."
"Offers a complete environment to develop PHP applications. It is valuable because it allows you to have a complete stack (PHP, MySQL, Zend Server) enabling the building of a development environment, and to deploy to the production system."
"Scaling up is an important factor for large projects, and with PHP 7 and its performance improvements, this becomes even easier.​"
"We have not encountered issues with scalability as long as we effectively use caching to optimize performance of our web applications as well as a proper use of database connectivity."
"Essentially, we get the best performance at very affordable costing."
"Faster web app implementation, when PHP dev is required by customers."
"Zend Engine gives the flexibility to use external modules to easily expand the functionalities you need for your web project."
"Zend PHP Engine is more secure than any other framework, and I usually prefer Zend PHP Engine for big applications."
"No issues with stability encountered."
 

Cons

"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."
"I would like the configuration process to be more simplified."
"Initially, I experienced hiccups whenever I installed the application."
"I would like it to have a more user-friendly graphical interface."
"NGINX Plus is moderately priced, but it could give better value for money."
"NGINX Plus is moderately priced, but it could give better value for money."
"Initially, I experienced hiccups whenever I installed the application. As with any application, there were initial issues, however, after receiving support, everything was rectified."
"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."
"Although it offers a complete environment to develop and deploy PHP applications, it has some limitations. For example, when the volume of data increased exponentially, I had problems scaling the system."
"Integration of MVC with ORM tools for PHP is okay, but lacking a short list of decent ORM tools for PHP to choose from; there is ample room for improvement in both areas."
"In terms of improvement, it doesn't support concurrent processing. When we want to process anything on a concurrent basis, we have to divide it into a number of things, like a queue, or we have to run it using Cron jobs. We would like to have the capability to run any thread or process in parallel."
"The main area that Zend needs to improve is to support asynchronous programming tasks, which is facilitated in PHP 7, but not at the same degree as HHVM."
"Integrating AI tools would make PHP more competitive, as other tools already have AI features."
"The solution can be quicker."
"Its object oriented programming language needs improvement."
"Integration of MVC with ORM tools for PHP is okay, but lacking a short list of decent ORM tools for PHP to choose from; there is ample room for improvement in both areas."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"​NGINX is a free tool in Brazil. There are some companies which do support it.​"
"There's an open-source version of NGINX that is free."
"Compared to other similar solutions on the market, I think it's over-priced."
"The cost is reasonable."
"The solution is free, but you can spend a lot of money with a complex solution."
"I use the solution's community edition which is free of cost."
"I am not so happy with their pricing policy, but this is not the worse thing in my life. I can tolerate it."
"​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 Zend PHP engine is open source technology, so there's no need for us to worry about licensing or other costs."
"Its pricing depends on the number of users."
"No problem with pricing and licensing, as tools are open source. You have to consider training cost, mindset setup cost, as part of the TCO."
"The solution is open source and you just pay for the server cost."
"Zend PHP Engine is not an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
7%
Insurance Company
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Large Enterprise2
 

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,...
What do you like most about NGINX Plus?
It performs very well. That's one of the primary reasons we use NGINX.
What needs improvement with Zend PHP Engine?
Integrating AI tools would make PHP more competitive, as other tools already have AI features.
What is your primary use case for Zend PHP Engine?
We use Zend PHP Engine in a government project to develop a tool for network monitoring analysis. We utilize the tool to collect all the network data for a platform.
 

Also Known As

NGINX
PHP Engine
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Locaweb, AppNexus, Wix, Reliam, Montana Interactive, MuleSoft, Warpwire, Discovery Education, InkaBinka, WordPress.com, Gogo, GOV.UK, NASA
Cisco
Find out what your peers are saying about NGINX Plus vs. Zend PHP Engine and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.