NGINX Plus Reviews

We are using NGINX to provide a reverse proxy in an environment of web services.

The product is free, reliable, and safe. 

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

It is reliable.

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

No issues yet.

No issues yet.

We used Microsoft ForeFront and changed because it was not stable during DDoS attacks.

It was a simple setup.

NGINX is a free tool in Brazil. There are some companies which do support it. The price is the cost to contract support with a specialized company, usually during consulting hours.

No.

I have been using it for eight years.

By far the best solution for web traffic control - in production and just around the house.

We have used it in every project since 2013, setting it as our standard. Our organization is able to use it effectively in multiple applications. 

The most valuable features would be the following:

• Reverse proxy routing
• Authentication
• Caching
• The ability to manipulate requests and responses
• Load balancing, etc. 

I would say ModSecurity 3.0 for NGINX Core, but they just released that. 

The biggest room for improvement would be to allow NGINX Core machines to cluster for memory zones in some way with a Plug and Play module. 

No issues. Never.

No issues. Never.

I have never had to use it. However, the community is very strong and supportive. I often answer people's questions on Reddit, etc. 

When I was young, I used Apache2, because that is all I knew. I switched to NGINX once I learned of it. That's the story. 

The initial setup is straightforward for those who are used to reverse proxies and/or load balancer terminology. The NGINX default install sets up an example web server, modifying it from there is very straightforward, and their documentation is fairly good. 

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. 

I have evaluated many types of products that fall into this category. They are all far less superior than NGINX: F5 BIG-IP, HAProxy, Apache2, and IIS. I am sure the list goes on. 

Install it, test it out, download, and read this free ebook: https://www.nginx.com/resources/library/complete-nginx-cookbook/.

I use this product on AWS. I would suggest the ELB/ALB sandwich model. There is a section in the ebook about this model.

Personally, I have written a book for O'Reilly Media that was sponsored by NGINX, Inc.

In my architecture (which is a microservice architecture with some special advances), NGINX serves multiple purposes. Namely:

• Application Gateway with an application-level firewall tool and load distributor & balancer (also serves for A/B testing).
• Rate limiter and bandwidth limiter (session-based).
• Source of real-time logs, consumed by intrusion detection system.
• "Circuit breaker" for the whole complex of microservices.

No other tool can compare to it.

I have never seen a single case where programmatic tools can change an organization. Tools are not subjects. They are passive objects. Organizations and people are subjects. Tools are just reflections of the organisation and people. Tools mirror people's faces and habits, never vice versa.

NGINX is extremely efficient in terms of the connection rate to the CPU cycles ratio, and in terms of the bandwidth to CPU cycles. It is configurable enough so smart engineers (which team consists of) can configure virtually anything which a product manager (say "business") is able to imagine. Even more because business does not always know all the quirks of DevOps and operations.

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

Stable as a rock. On the stable host OS and stable hardware, your connectivity channels will be saturated (and dead) long before NGINX will mention any difficulties.

No scalability issues at all. Just add more horsepower to the VM. Horizontal scalability also works well, but you definitely need an engineer who knows how to do this and is ready to take his/her part of the responsibility. 

I've never asked for anything. Everything was done in-house.

Before NGINX, there was Squid. I have been using NGINX since its arrival on the market.

Squid is a tool of a different age, from a different (previous) generation. I started using Squid many years ago, from its pre-release beta. It was a good tool for its time and purpose: just caching proxy, which allows you to somehow save on traffic and bandwidth. At these times, the web was mostly static so it worked.

Later, both the capacities of the channels had grown 1,000-10,000 times from megabits to a 10th of gigabits per second. The web moved to mostly dynamic content, so caching proxies lost their appeal.

On the other hand, NGINX is mostly an application level gateway, not a proxy per se. It is a different tool for different tasks.

Get a real good engineer who will do this for your business. I did, and I am happy with it.

Only an in-house team was in the game for implementation. I doubt that the vendor has enough engineers of this level available for assigning them to the kind of customers that we are.

Who calculates "ROI" for every single component of a large system with more than 100 components in it? 

The whole system brought ROI even better than what was expected.

There were not any other real options. 

Squid is too heavy. Apache in reverse proxy mode is also over-bloated, resource hungry, and not suitable for the task.

NGINX is the best available tool today for the tasks it covers.

Simplicity, stability, and modularity. Because, if you are familiar with Apache, you will know why my first reason is simplicity. 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 lowered overall bugs and increased system stability. Also, it allowed our system to serve many more clients than the old system did.

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.

Around four to five years.

No.

Yes. As I explained in areas for improvement.

I have no experience with the Nginx technical team.

Yes, Apache. It was terribly complex for usage and unstable in a production environment.

Complex. It needed a complete product rework.

I have no advice. Nginx is free. I don't have experience with the Plus version.

No.

Use community knowledge. Nginx is widely used worldwide and there are many experts on the web that will help you out. Also, read the documentation. Its documentation is excellent.

The primary use cases involve using NGINX for various features including WAF, API security, DDoS protection, and bot protection. Additionally, it facilitates network discovery and provides visibility into network activities, allowing us to uncover solutions and identify any areas we might have missed.

I utilize NGINX for its capability to provide visibility and discovery options. It helps discover and identify networks, which is crucial for ensuring application performance, managing latency, and checking server reachability. NGINX communicates with XE and uses Linux command terminology, thus providing visibility by interacting with the nearest POP.

The need for human involvement is high due to the complexity of NGINX's Linux-based terminology. More tactics and techniques can enhance its usability. Additionally, it is not a cost-effective solution for few applications.

We have been using this technology for the last five to ten years, so we are familiar with how it works.

I have not encountered any challenges with NGINX's stability, as it works effectively with Big IP, XC, and Palo Alto.

Support is available in the market with options like FYSE, which provides assistance during critical tasks.

We have experience using Palo Alto Networks, Sophos, SonicWall Firewalls, and other technologies.

NGINX is not cost-effective, especially for few applications, and is considered higher-priced.

Alternatives evaluated include Redway, cloud solutions, and services providing CDN options. Some gaps exist in NGINX not covering certain API options.

I would rate the solution an eight and a half out of ten. It's important to understand the requirements before recommending its implementation.

I use the solution as a reverse proxy. 

The product is lightweight and fast. 

The solution needs to be easier to setup and deploy. 

I have been using the product for two to three years. 

I would rate the product stability a ten out of ten.

I would rate the product scalability an eight out of ten. 

The tool helps us to improve our website speed. 

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

I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. You need to be careful with the product's configurations. It is easy to maintain. 

NGINX Plus is a part of F5 and can be useful for customers with containers and terminals. Moreover, it's useful for businesses that need application delivery control and enterprise load balancing.

It's lightweight software that can handle heavy loads efficiently.

There is room for improvement in the pricing model. 

I have been using this solution for three years. 

The customer service and support is fine. 

The initial setup is straightforward. It took about a week to deploy the solution.

There was an ROI. It's a very useful solution.

The licensing cost is yearly, and it can be quite expensive.

Overall, I would rate the solution a ten out of ten. 

If you're using a container environment, I would highly recommend it. It's usually a good fit in about 58% of cases.