NGINX Plus vs Zend PHP Engine comparison

F5 and Zend are both solutions in the Application Infrastructure category. F5 is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.3, while Zend is ranked #15 with an average rating of 8.0. F5 holds a 10.8% mindshare in AIS, compared to Zend’s 1.7% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of F5 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Zend users who would recommend it.

NGINX Plus

Read 31 NGINX Plus reviews

2,093 Views
1,787 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Zend PHP Engine

Read 11 Zend PHP Engine reviews

503 Views
210 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

NGINX Plus

Zend PHP Engine

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

Zend PHP Engine and NGINX Plus compete in web development and server management. NGINX Plus emerges superior with its performance optimization and scalability.

Features: Zend PHP Engine offers robust debugging tools, seamless PHP execution, and code protection. NGINX Plus provides load balancing, advanced security, and high-performance content delivery.

Room for Improvement: Zend PHP Engine could enhance its scalability, expand support for diverse programming environments, and improve integration with modern frameworks. NGINX Plus might simplify initial setup processes, offer more affordable pricing options, and enhance its documentation for better usability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zend PHP Engine is known for its easy deployment and PHP-focused support. NGINX Plus may require more initial configuration but offers comprehensive setup guides and responsive support for complex environments.

Pricing and ROI: Zend PHP Engine features competitive pricing, enhancing PHP developer productivity. NGINX Plus, despite higher setup costs, offers substantial ROI through performance optimization and server management cost savings.

To learn more, read our detailed NGINX Plus vs. Zend PHP Engine Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

NGINX Plus vs. Zend PHP Engine

April 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

NGINX Plus

Ranking in Application Infrastructure

2nd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (6th)

Zend PHP Engine

Ranking in Application Infrastructure

15th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of NGINX Plus is 10.8%, down from 11.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zend PHP Engine is 1.7%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Infrastructure

Featured Reviews

Ritesh-Bakhru

Major Account Manager at Check Point Software

Quick installation and very easy to manage while doing orchestration or automation

NGINX cannot be a replacement for your traditional load balancer with what we use in the network today. However, with applications going toward microservices, NGINX is definitely a way forward. F5 has many traditional load balancing features, so they still need to bring some of those features to NGINX. NGINX is a very basic load balancer and cannot do as many customizations as F5. I think F5 is trying to implement those features in NGINX so they can improve the balancing on NGINX, but I think that will take some time. With the traditional F5 set up, the same OS can do load balancing, firewalls, and even policy enforcement. If we are able to bring some of those capabilities to NGINX, I think it would become a versatile solution and usage would definitely increase.

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SatyendraGupta

External Consultant (Digital Tool Developer and Intervention Specialist) at IQVIA

The fact that it is available open-source is the best feature

The fact that it is available open-source is the best feature. A general scripting language should be further developed and should be embedded into it. I have been Zend PHP Engine for nine years. Multiple people are using the solution. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.…

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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 most valuable feature of the solution is that it is simple to configure."

"When I worked in a security research center, we tested NGINX to support DoS and DDoS attacks, and its results were great."

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

"Zero Downtime has always been a strength in recommending infrastructure web services. NGINX allows me to execute such infrastructure with less complications and the ability to switch from server to server easily."

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

"Using NGINX Plus for web traffic distribution is fantastic. It offers performance similar to physical load balancers but with added flexibility."

"The robust software architecture allows for it to be scalable and very stable."

"Its versatility and capabilities make it invaluable for implementing patches and fixes when necessary."

More NGINX Plus pros

"Scaling up is an important factor for large projects, and with PHP 7 and its performance improvements, this becomes even easier."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the speed at which it compiles and sends the dynamic cache."

"The solution's initial setup process is easy."

"This solution is really easy for me to use."

"Zend PHP Engine is a good tool for developing and collecting data, offering strong performance."

"It offers good support for various types of classes, along with many open source libraries that we can readily utilize in our application development process. This gives us a lot of options when it comes to custom development solutions, without having to worry about licensing or other programming-related issues."

"Faster web app implementation, when PHP dev is required by customers."

"The cache modules that Zend provides have been able to optimize and accelerate the loading of the pages when there was exponential growth in data volume and quantity of requests. At the same time, the monitoring console allowed us to have a real-time understanding of the resources and to make decisions when they were at the limit."

More Zend PHP Engine pros

Cons

"The scaling should be built into the software rather than configured from an outside source."

"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."

"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."

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

"The center management system could be improved."

"I would like to see the Grafana integration in NGINX which is already present in HAProxy. Grafana integration will help the solution visualize all the data analytics on the dashboard which is currently not present."

"The KPI should be more focused on load balancing and the latency in application calling from the end system."

More NGINX Plus cons

"The process of installing and configuring the product is a bit complex and could be improved."

"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."

"Zend PHP Engine needs to improve the loading time of its libraries and make it faster."

"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."

"SQL queries have always been an issue with PHP, especially if you use large tables, which require caution from the side of the developer."

"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."

"The solution can be quicker."

"The biggest problem with PHP is you have to write lot of conditions or have to use a framework."

More Zend PHP Engine cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"I am not so happy with their pricing policy, but this is not the worse thing in my life. I can tolerate it."

"HAProxy is cheaper than NGINX."

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

"NGINX is a free tool in Brazil. There are some companies which do support it."

"I use the solution's community edition which is free of cost."

"It's an open source solution, so it's free."

"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

"Its pricing depends on the number of users."

"The Zend PHP engine is open source technology, so there's no need for us to worry about licensing or other costs."

"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."

"Zend PHP Engine is not an expensive solution."

"The solution is open source and you just pay for the server cost."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

17%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

14%

University

10%

Construction Company

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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,...

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?

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 do you like most about Zend PHP Engine?

The fact that it is available open-source is the best feature.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zend PHP Engine?

PHP is an open-source solution.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Zend PHP Engine?

Integrating AI tools would make PHP more competitive, as other tools already have AI features.

See all answers

Comparisons

IIS vs NGINX Plus

Compared 17% of the time

HAProxy vs NGINX Plus

Compared 15% of the time

Kemp LoadMaster vs NGINX Plus

Compared 11% of the time

NetScaler vs NGINX Plus

Compared 11% of the time

Apache Web Server vs NGINX Plus

Compared 10% of the time

More NGINX Plus Competitors

Apache Web Server vs Zend PHP Engine

Compared 100% of the time

More Zend PHP Engine Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

NGINX Plus

April 2025

Download NGINX Plus product report

Buyer's Guide

Application Infrastructure

March 2025

Download Zend PHP Engine product report

Also Known As

NGINX

PHP Engine

Overview

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.

The Zend PHP Engine is designed to optimize PHP code and improve performance, making it a popular choice for web developers. It is easy to use, stable, does not require a lot of code, is open source, and only requires payment for server costs. The initial setup is straightforward, and there is no real need to set up the solution because it's built into the deployment.

Zend

Sample Customers

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

Cisco

Buyer's Guide

NGINX Plus vs. Zend PHP Engine

April 2025

Free Report: NGINX Plus vs. Zend PHP Engine

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