F5 BIG-IP vs. NGINX Plus

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
F5 BIG-IP
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
F5 BIG-IP software from Seattle-based F5 Networks is a load balancing and application protection solution suite available on cloud or via virtual editions, on a subscription or perpetual licensing basis.N/A
NGINX Plus
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
NGINX Plus is presented as a cloud‑native, easy-to-use reverse proxy, load balancer, and API gateway, from F5.
$849
per month billed annually
Pricing
F5 BIG-IPNGINX Plus
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Team
$849
per month billed annually
Advanced
$2,099
per month billed annually
Enterprise
Tiered Pricing
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
F5 BIG-IPNGINX Plus
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
F5 BIG-IPNGINX Plus
Features
F5 BIG-IPNGINX Plus
Application Servers
Comparison of Application Servers features of Product A and Product B
F5 BIG-IP
-
Ratings
NGINX Plus
7.9
6 Ratings
1% below category average
IDE support00 Ratings7.84 Ratings
Security management00 Ratings8.04 Ratings
Administration and management00 Ratings7.85 Ratings
Application server performance00 Ratings8.04 Ratings
Installation00 Ratings7.95 Ratings
Open-source standards compliance00 Ratings8.25 Ratings
Best Alternatives
F5 BIG-IPNGINX Plus
Small Businesses
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.4 out of 10
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.4 out of 10
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.4 out of 10
Enterprises
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.4 out of 10
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
F5 BIG-IPNGINX Plus
Likelihood to Recommend
9.1
(205 ratings)
8.5
(6 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.6
(7 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.6
(78 ratings)
7.6
(3 ratings)
Availability
6.4
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.3
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.1
(8 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.5
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
5.5
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
5.5
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.3
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
7.3
(1 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
7.3
(1 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
F5 BIG-IPNGINX Plus
Likelihood to Recommend
F5
Definitely in larger environments, more mature organizations that obviously have the budget to spend and want best in class. Where it struggles is those organizations that don't have the funding and money to spend on it and need more basic functionality. So I'd say that's smaller customers we've worked with and kind of mid-market. They tend to get scared when they get the quotes. Also we've had some struggles with account team consistency. So for the sales team, just a lot of turnover and a lot of missteps on customer calls.
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F5
Makes our life easy as application admins in securing our applications and making them accessible. We can easily add an application within a few minutes and define the backend servers right away.
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Pros
F5
  • I mean from a basic level, it actually satisfies all the use cases we have, which is basically to have multiple web servers for the front end and then you want that to be equally split across. The traffic comes in from all over the world. We use DRA protection and everything, but then we also internally want to make sure all the servers are being utilized and we provide much more availability across all servers. We just make sure BIG-IP sits in between and handles the traffic accordingly. And it's pretty basic and it comes to drawing traffic. It's pretty easy to configure and set it up and then forget.
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F5
  • APIGW
  • Policy Enforcement
  • Centrally Manage API Traffic
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Cons
F5
  • Recently we have been deploying F5 web application firewall and we have started the deployment. We have already moved applications out there, but we are not yet to the point wherein I could comment any positive feedback or any negative feedback because we are still going through it, right. But as far as I'm concerned, I don't see any drawbacks or any shortcomings on the F5 product lineup.
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F5
  • An AI bot would be cool to help build config files
  • More webinars for advanced NGINX Plus would be great
  • GUI tool... might already be one available
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Likelihood to Renew
F5
So far experience with F5 BIG-IP has been good, but we are only 6 months into the deployment and will depend on how things run over time.
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F5
No reason not to renew it, we are happy with it.
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Usability
F5
It's not difficult to understand the parts of application configurations and features. Setting up new virtual servers with multiple profiles, certificates, and nodes is easy for new users through the web interface, which also translates to programability in scripts, DevOps, or other configuration management use-cases. Users from different backgrounds such as networking and infrastructure can use F5 BIG-IP, while users who are familiar with API calls can easily configure objects without needing to understand the platform at all.
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F5
Very easy to use
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Support Rating
F5
On the occasions when we've had to engage f5 support, they have been great. They have always resolved our issues quickly and been easy to work with and professional. The reason I give them a 10 out of 10, however, is because when we've had issues that have crossed over between the f5 BIG-IP, our Cisco switches, and our Microsoft IIS server the f5 support representatives have been extremely knowledgeable about every product and device involved and have been able to troubleshoot end-to-end without having to engage other vendors.
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F5
We had an issue after upgrading from RHEL 7 to 8, and there were some issues that the security team imposed upon the platform with a scanning tool. We also had a VXLAN environment that was not properly sending a gratuitous arp to the network. NGINX support was instrumental to speedily resolving our issue.
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Implementation Rating
F5
implementation is fine
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F5
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
F5
That's the one thing that really stood out. It was a lot easier to use from an administrator standpoint, so I think that's the one thing that really made our team decide to go with this product versus another competitor. Just ease of use.
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F5
The API and dashboard alone make NGINX Plus a better choice.
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Return on Investment
F5
  • F5 BIG-IP has a highly positive impact on the customers. The main impact is on the security of the web applications.
  • F5 BIG-IP provides an easy and safe way to connect employees to assets and applications that reside in an on-premises environment.
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F5
  • We are planning by using NGINX it can greatly reduce our OPEX by 50% "just our own running APIGW" the cascading effects in the long run will be much more.
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ScreenShots