Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco AnyConnect
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Cisco offers an SSL VPN solution via AnyConnect.N/A
Cloudflare
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Cloudflare’s connectivity cloud is a unified platform of cloud-native services designed to help enterprises regain control over their IT environments. Powered by an intelligent, programmable global cloud network, it is built to offer security, performance, visibility, and reliability.
$20
per month
NGINX
Score 9.2 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
Cisco AnyConnectCloudflareNGINX
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Pro
$20
per month
Business
$200
per month
Free
Free
Enterprise
Contact sales team
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco AnyConnectCloudflareNGINX
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
Cisco AnyConnectCloudflareNGINX
Considered Multiple Products
Cisco AnyConnect

No answer on this topic

Cloudflare
Chose Cloudflare
Cloudflare is much easier to configure compared to these services.
Chose Cloudflare
Akamai and Edgecast/Verizon are way over-priced, and also require hassling sales people to negotiate prices, and cloudflare just has their prices posted, and don't require a multi-year contract, etc.
StackPath is a regular CDN provider, and is probably cheaper than Cloudflare …
NGINX

No answer on this topic

Features
Cisco AnyConnectCloudflareNGINX
Virtual Private Network
Comparison of Virtual Private Network features of Product A and Product B
Cisco AnyConnect
9.1
27 Ratings
3% above category average
Cloudflare
-
Ratings
NGINX
-
Ratings
AES 256-bit Encryption9.327 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
Kill Switch9.020 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-Platform Support8.826 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
Split Tunneling9.225 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
IP Address Masking9.224 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
No-Logs Policy8.820 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple Server Locations9.022 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
Automatic Wi-Fi Protection9.422 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
Simultaneous Connections9.322 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
Customer Support Services8.723 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
Application Servers
Comparison of Application Servers features of Product A and Product B
Cisco AnyConnect
-
Ratings
Cloudflare
-
Ratings
NGINX
8.7
32 Ratings
9% above category average
IDE support00 Ratings00 Ratings7.617 Ratings
Security management00 Ratings00 Ratings8.627 Ratings
Administration and management00 Ratings00 Ratings8.827 Ratings
Application server performance00 Ratings00 Ratings9.327 Ratings
Installation00 Ratings00 Ratings8.929 Ratings
Open-source standards compliance00 Ratings00 Ratings9.025 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco AnyConnectCloudflareNGINX
Small Businesses
Norton 360
Norton 360
Score 7.2 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Apache HTTP Server
Apache HTTP Server
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Score 9.2 out of 10
IBM Cloud Internet Services
IBM Cloud Internet Services
Score 9.0 out of 10
Apache Tomcat
Apache Tomcat
Score 8.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Score 9.2 out of 10
Akamai App & API Protector
Akamai App & API Protector
Score 8.5 out of 10
Apache Tomcat
Apache Tomcat
Score 8.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco AnyConnectCloudflareNGINX
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(111 ratings)
9.0
(184 ratings)
8.9
(50 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.9
(12 ratings)
8.2
(4 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Usability
9.1
(91 ratings)
8.6
(8 ratings)
8.3
(3 ratings)
Availability
9.9
(9 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.6
(3 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.4
(93 ratings)
7.8
(149 ratings)
8.1
(4 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(7 ratings)
8.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
9.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
10.0
(7 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.8
(3 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco AnyConnectCloudflareNGINX
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
Providing secure remote access with a robust VPN, creating an encrypted tunnel so employees can safely access internal company resources like file servers and private apps from anywhere. It also allows enforcing device compliance: depending on policies, checks whether a device has an active antivirus and the latest OS updates before allowing it to connect. When there is not much need for remote access, the cost is too high.
Read full review
Cloudflare
Cloudflare works well as security measure that gives peace of mind without needing to work too hard to get it functioning well. It provides great tools to customize the security experience as well. This is all the same for the caching tools as well. They have a lot of built in tools that make using the caching easy right out of the box, but they provide the customization options to get things just right for your site.
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.
Read full review
Pros
Cisco
  • All Cisco AnyConnect data transfer processes are secure to enhance security.
  • It can connect multiple terminals across various sites directly.
  • Centralized management of the workstations connected to the network became easier than ever for managers with multiple locations in the organization's workforce.
Read full review
Cloudflare
  • The best part is the content delivery network. Cloudflare has a large network of data centres around the world that helps cache and delivers content quickly to our customers.
  • Cloudflare offers us with a fast and reliable DNS service and with the world class features such as Cloudflare workers, SSL verification, certificate management and web application firewall. When all of these are combined together, it provides very strict security for our organization.
  • One of the most important feature that we use is the analytics and threat detection. It provides us with the real time insights of all the threats originating from multiple locations and landing on our websites.
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)!
Read full review
Cons
Cisco
  • Cisco AnyConnect can use the system resources as long as the program is being run.
  • Account activation may be very difficult when connecting from areas requiring captive portal login, if certain settings are not allowed.
  • By default, it is possible to request the user to authenticate again at specific intervals.
Read full review
Cloudflare
  • In some cases, using Cloudflare can actually lead to slower website speeds if the network is congested or if the website's traffic is particularly heavy.
  • Some website owners may find that the level of customization offered by Cloudflare is limited, especially in comparison to other solutions.
  • While Cloudflare is easy to set up and manage, it may be too complex for users who are not familiar with web technologies.
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.
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Likelihood to Renew
Cisco
It is perhaps the second most functional tool we have, it will definitely be renewed every year. Our network is stable, which ensures that there is less for our technicians to troubleshoot, which frees them up to ensure other parts of the company are maintained. This keeps our costs low and our downtime at a minimum.
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Cloudflare
lower cost
Read full review
F5
Great value for the product
Read full review
Usability
Cisco
It is very useful tool for companies having hybrid work culture. It will allow their employees to work seamlessly from home, office, other branches. This tool will increase your productivity as it will facilitates your employees to access corporate applications 24x7. Overall it is easy to use, deploy and integrate.
Read full review
Cloudflare
Everything is extremely concise and all settings apply immediately and take effect globally. There is no reason to explicitly plan/think in terms of individual regions as one would have to traditional cloud offerings (AWS, OCI, Azure). All Cloudflare products integrate seamless as part of a single pipeline that executes from request to response.
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
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Cisco
I have been using Cisco AnyConnect for past two years and thus I can say very firmly that I have never seen the outage from the Cisco AnyConnect services either It is VPN, System Scans or the Network Connectivity. Talking about the errors likewise major errors I have faced throughout my period of use.
Read full review
Cloudflare
In 6+ years of relying on Cloudflare, I think we experienced one or two brief outages that were Cloudflare's fault.
Read full review
F5
No answers on this topic
Performance
Cisco
Absolutely no speed issues, and I see no evidence of slowdowns across any of the multiple platforms I use daily. It's operation is completely invisible most of the time, except where there is a loss of connection due to server issues or a loss of power. Everything loads quickly and accurately.
Read full review
Cloudflare
Their Argo for the global network is the core feature we love.
Read full review
F5
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Cisco
I don't know but nobody provides proper support for us as end user. They should have people to check whether end user is facing issues or not. Cisco AnyConnect having very high charges and still there is no proper support! Many requests and many tickets have opened, but the working speed is very low for the support team! They should have it to optimize.
Read full review
Cloudflare
Excellent product, Cloudflare is a true pioneer of the modern Internet, providing tools, services, and expertise that vastly improve the performance and security of web services. Any issues are resolved quickly with detailed RCA and follow-ups published publicly. I'm thankful to Cloudflare and use their services both at work and at home.
Read full review
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.
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Implementation Rating
Cisco
Our Managed Services vendor helped us with the implementation. When we initially setup our AnyConnect using MFA for remote connectivity, the setup was easy and straight forward and worked just fine. After a year, we decided to change to an "always on" feature and use machine and user based security certificates instead of MFA. We had to open a ticket with Cisco support and have their assistance getting this feature to work. Turned out they had a small bug in the code for that version of AnyConnect and it has since been corrected. We have had no issues with the upgrades since that time. The deployment of the software to the user machines was done with SCCM and was straight forward. The user machine upgrades are easy - when the user machine connects and sees a new version available, it upgrades itself! What could be easier?
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Cloudflare
Very well executed implementation where our team was able to handle the implementation with guidance.
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F5
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Cisco
Cisco is one of our core partners besides Microsoft and SAP. And so yes, we are utilizing very many projects from Cisco. I would mention the whole networking equipment, the routing equipment, the wireless LAN, and also when it comes to infrastructure to compute infrastructure, we are utilizing Cisco servers within our converged infrastructure Flex spot. So we have been running a flex bot from Cisco, NetApp, and VMware for 12 years, and we are still very satisfied with the product. We are looking forward to upgrading to the newest blades and fabric interconnect to continue this journey.
Read full review
Cloudflare
They have the most generous free offering, and after the free offering limit is reached - you're still getting plenty of value for the buck.
They have very good reputation.
They have an ever expanding list of tools that can support multiple scenarios under one roof.
Read full review
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
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Scalability
Cisco
Cisco AnyConnect has been a speedy, reliable, and efficient tool for the creation of your own VPN whatever location that you've brought your laptop. Customer support is consistently top-notch, coming up with quick fixes to whatever difficulties are thrown your way. I would not hesitate to reccommend Cisco AnyConnect to any business that needs connected employees throught the world.
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Cloudflare
They are built for scale and have the capacity to handle all the traffic we could ever expect to get.
Read full review
F5
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Cisco
  • We are able to seamlessly work on multiple clients daily, and it allows us to quickly handle more projects at the same time.
  • Cisco AnyConnect has allowed our own company's coworkers to remotely connect back to the corporate network, easily assisting work schedules and processes, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Being forced to work remotely, meant our processes still happened quickly and efficiently, by being able to leverage and use Cisco AnyConnect VPN.
  • Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, I have worked 100% remotely for a few years now. This was always due to the reliable connectivity and ease of use with Cisco AnyConnect VPN. I live 2+ hours from our nearest corporate office, and even further from some of my client locations, and I have always been able to connect to any of my multiple Cisco AnyConnect VPN connections, within seconds.
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Cloudflare
  • Immediate ROI on Registrar and DNS hosting while giving a single plane of glass to managing both with domain registrations at cost, and no cost DNS hosting
  • WAF helped us move at risk servers/applications into a protected state allowing us to perform remediations at a measured pace and get them done right instead of band aide solutions.
  • CDN proxying increase the speed of our website while simultaneously reducing server load.
  • DMARC management and report interpretation allow use to identify weak points in our email systems, remediate and move to stricter policies without significantly increasing staff time spent managing it.
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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.
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ScreenShots

NGINX Screenshots

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