Cisco AnyConnect vs. NGINX

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
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 AnyConnectNGINX
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco AnyConnectNGINX
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco AnyConnectNGINX
Features
Cisco AnyConnectNGINX
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
NGINX
-
Ratings
AES 256-bit Encryption9.327 Ratings00 Ratings
Kill Switch9.020 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-Platform Support8.826 Ratings00 Ratings
Split Tunneling9.225 Ratings00 Ratings
IP Address Masking9.224 Ratings00 Ratings
No-Logs Policy8.820 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple Server Locations9.022 Ratings00 Ratings
Automatic Wi-Fi Protection9.422 Ratings00 Ratings
Simultaneous Connections9.322 Ratings00 Ratings
Customer Support Services8.723 Ratings00 Ratings
Application Servers
Comparison of Application Servers features of Product A and Product B
Cisco AnyConnect
-
Ratings
NGINX
8.7
32 Ratings
9% above category average
IDE support00 Ratings7.617 Ratings
Security management00 Ratings8.627 Ratings
Administration and management00 Ratings8.827 Ratings
Application server performance00 Ratings9.327 Ratings
Installation00 Ratings8.929 Ratings
Open-source standards compliance00 Ratings9.025 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco AnyConnectNGINX
Small Businesses
Norton 360
Norton 360
Score 7.2 out of 10
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
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
Apache Tomcat
Apache Tomcat
Score 8.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco AnyConnectNGINX
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(111 ratings)
8.9
(50 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.9
(12 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Usability
9.1
(91 ratings)
8.3
(3 ratings)
Availability
9.9
(9 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.6
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.4
(93 ratings)
8.1
(4 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
10.0
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.8
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco AnyConnectNGINX
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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.
Read full review
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?
Read full review
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
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
Read full review
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.
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.
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.
Read full review
ScreenShots

NGINX Screenshots

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