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Azure Application Gateway vs. F5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load Balancer vs. NGINX

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Azure Application Gateway

    Score8.8 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft's Azure Application Gateway is a platform-managed, scalable, and highly available application delivery controller as a service with integrated web application firewall.N/A

    F5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load Balancer

    Score9 out of 10
    N/AF5’s cloud-based, intelligent DNS with global server load balancing (GSLB) directs application traffic across environments globally, performs health checks, and automates responses to activities and events to maintain high performance among apps.N/A

    NGINX

    Score9.1 out of 10
    Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
    NGINX, a business unit of F5 Networks, powers over 65% of the world's busiest websites and web applications. NGINX started out as an open source web server and reverse proxy, built to be faster and more efficient than Apache. Over the years, NGINX has built a suite of infrastructure software products o tackle some of the biggest challenges in managing high-transaction applications. NGINX offers a suite of products to form the core of what organizations need to create…N/A
    Pricing
    Azure Application GatewayF5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load BalancerNGINX
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Azure Application GatewayF5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load BalancerNGINX
    Free Trial
    NoNoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeOptional
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Azure Application GatewayF5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load BalancerNGINX
    Considered Multiple Products
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    F5
    No answer on this topic
    F5
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    9 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    98%
    Would buy again
    49 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    8 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    45 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    9 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    50 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    7 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    92%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    34 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    9 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    43 Answers
    Features
    Azure Application GatewayF5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load BalancerNGINX
    Application Servers
    Comparison of Application Servers features of Azure Application Gateway and F5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load Balancer and NGINX
    Feature
    Azure Application Gateway
    -
    Ratings
    F5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load Balancer
    -
    Ratings
    NGINX
    8.8
    43 Ratings
    10% above category average
    IDE support00 Ratings00 Ratings8.127 Ratings
    Security management00 Ratings00 Ratings8.638 Ratings
    Administration and management00 Ratings00 Ratings8.939 Ratings
    Application server performance00 Ratings00 Ratings9.139 Ratings
    Installation00 Ratings00 Ratings9.040 Ratings
    Open-source standards compliance00 Ratings00 Ratings9.037 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Azure Application GatewayF5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load BalancerNGINX
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    NetScaler
    Score8 out of 10
    F5 BIG-IP
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Oracle WebLogic Server
    Score7.3 out of 10
    Enterprises
    NetScaler
    Score8 out of 10
    F5 BIG-IP
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Red Hat JBoss EAP
    Score8.5 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Azure Application GatewayF5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load BalancerNGINX
    Likelihood to Recommend
    10.0
    (9 ratings)
    8.2
    (2 ratings)
    9.3
    (72 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Usability
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.3
    (2 ratings)
    8.3
    (25 ratings)
    Support Rating
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (5 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Azure Application GatewayF5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load BalancerNGINX
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Microsoft
    For building scalable and highly available applications, Azure Application Gateway does most of the job on behalf of you; automatically load-balancing traffic from a number of users to a number of back-end servers. This ensure scalability and availability. The in-built security is great as can be expected from Microsoft, and user has a variety of tools for monitoring the health of the load-balancing function as well as the health of back end servers behind it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    F5
    For small scall env and lower bandwidth apps. Require more on high workloads and additional bandwidth of sustainability. Virtual appliance are most flexible for environment who requires on-prem solutions. Look for flexible subscription and continuous support on various enhancements
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    F5
    Nginx is well-suited for any web server scenarios, such as web applications, backend or reverse proxy for both application and HTTP requests, and distribution. It is less appropriate for Windows-based applications that run directly on a Windows Server host. In any case, it is very easy to manage, through separate conf files for each application or site you want to host with it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Microsoft
    • Easy integration with Load Balancer and Azure Scale Set to provide a full solution for traffic management.
    • With rich routing rule, we could use one Application Gateway as the central point for all internal applications to expose to the external network.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    F5
    • Routing
    • Availability
    • Robust
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    F5
    • Very low memory usage. Can handle many more connections than alternatives (like Apache HTTPD) due to low overhead. (event-based architecture).
    • Great at serving static content.
    • Scales very well. Easy to host multiple Nginx servers to promote high availability.
    • Open-Source (no cost)!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Microsoft
    • More cost-effective pricing plans are welcome for the future, especially for WAF
    • Ability to automate the TLS certificate renewal procedure
    • Ability to manage non-HTTP traffic
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    F5
    • Virtualization
    • Flexible subscriptions
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    F5
    • Customer support can be strangely condescending, perhaps it's a language issue?
    • I find it a little weird how the release versions used for Nginx+ aren't the same as for open source version. It can be very confusing to determine the cross-compatibility of modules, etc., because of this.
    • It seems like some (most?) modules on their own site are ancient and no longer supported, so their documentation in this area needs work.
    • It's difficult to navigate between nginx.com commercial site and customer support. They need to be integrated together.
    • I'd love to see more work done on nginx+ monitoring without requiring logging every request. I understand that many statistics can only be derived from logs, but plenty should work without that. Logging is not an option in many environments.
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    F5
    No answers on this topic
    F5
    Great value for the product
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Microsoft
    Most of the Application Gateway's features and services can be managed and re-configured via either the Azure Portal GUI or via the Azure Cloud Shell, thus allowing both CLI modes, i.e. Azure CLI (Bash) and Azure Powershell. The v2 version of Application Gateway has significantly improved performance during initial configuration or during re-configuration changes, thus making it much more usable for IT admins, as compared to v1.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    F5
    I gave F5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load Balancer this usability rating because I think F5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load Balancer Review is intuitively designed.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    F5
    This tool is really easy to use and configure. Consumes very less system resources. It is highly modular and configurable. You can easily use it with other tools like certbot for SSLs. You can configure basic security with configuration and headers
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Microsoft
    I don’t like that it's part of the Microsoft brand. In general, I am not a fan of Microsoft products but Azure gets it right.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    F5
    No answers on this topic
    F5
    Community support is great, and they've also had a presence at conferences. Overall, there is no shortage of documentation and community support. We're currently using it to serve up some WordPress sites, and configuring NGINX for this purpose is well documented.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Microsoft
    Other load balancing tools in Azure (Azure LB and Azure Traffic Manager) are limited in their functionality in comparison with the Azure Application Gateway, and also, they don't provide security features. Azure Firewall, although it has security features, is more expensive, and most importantly, it's not a load balancer at all.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    F5
    No answers on this topic
    F5
    I have found that [NGINX] seems to perform better throughout the years with less issues although I've used Apache more. I would definitely recommend [NGINX] for any high volume site and I've seen this to usually be the case from most provided web hosts who will pick [NGINX] over alternatives
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Microsoft
    • Positive : Improved performance and scalability
    • Positive : Better and enhanced Security
    • Positive : Efficiency
    • Negative: Cost
    • Negative: More resources to manage.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    F5
    • The impact F5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load Balancer has on our organization's overall business objectives is that F5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load Balancer is an Instrumental part of our cloud architecture
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    F5
    • By using Nginx, we can host multiple web services on a single server, keeping our infrastructure costs lower.
    • Nginx maintains our HTTPS connections, allowing us to keep our promise to our customers that their data is safe in transit.
    • Due to Nginx's extremely low failure rate, our web addresses always return something meaningful, even when individual services go down. In sense, this means we are "always online" and allows us to maintain brand and support our customers even in the face of catastrophe.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    NGINX Screenshots

    Screenshot of Overview of the NGINX Application PlatformScreenshot of NGINX Controller - MonitoringScreenshot of NGINX Controller - Configuration