IBM CICS Transaction Server vs. NGINX

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM CICS Transaction Server
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
IBM CICS (Customer Information Control System) is mixed-language application server that runs on IBM z/OS. CICS® Transaction Server, often called CICS, is used for hosting transactional enterprise applications in a hybrid architecture.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
IBM CICS Transaction ServerNGINX
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM CICS Transaction ServerNGINX
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
IBM CICS Transaction ServerNGINX
Features
IBM CICS Transaction ServerNGINX
Application Servers
Comparison of Application Servers features of Product A and Product B
IBM CICS Transaction Server
8.0
2 Ratings
0% above category average
NGINX
8.7
32 Ratings
9% above category average
IDE support5.01 Ratings7.617 Ratings
Security management9.02 Ratings8.627 Ratings
Administration and management9.02 Ratings8.827 Ratings
Application server performance10.02 Ratings9.327 Ratings
Installation8.02 Ratings8.929 Ratings
Open-source standards compliance7.02 Ratings9.025 Ratings
Best Alternatives
IBM CICS Transaction ServerNGINX
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Score 9.2 out of 10
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Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
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Score 9.2 out of 10
Apache Tomcat
Apache Tomcat
Score 8.0 out of 10
Enterprises
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NGINX
Score 9.2 out of 10
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Score 8.0 out of 10
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User Ratings
IBM CICS Transaction ServerNGINX
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(2 ratings)
8.9
(50 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.3
(3 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.1
(4 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM CICS Transaction ServerNGINX
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM
IBM CICS Transaction Server is multi-decades proven transaction server which is very scalable, very secured, easy to use, has good transactional capabilities, works well all other mainframe resources such as Db2, languages on IBM mainframe, has access control capabilities in terms of who can access the transaction for read mode vs update mode, etc.
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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.
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Pros
IBM
  • De facto standard in the legacy enterprise
  • Multiplatform connection
  • Native connection with DB2
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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)!
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Cons
IBM
  • Would like to see the transaction response matrix on the average transaction response among all requests.
  • Would like to see GUI tool to be able to see currently running transactions
  • Would like to be able to get the details of where the cics transaction was triggered from
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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
IBM
No answers on this topic
F5
Great value for the product
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Usability
IBM
No answers on this topic
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
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Support Rating
IBM
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.
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Alternatives Considered
IBM
There is no comparison, in practice, the possibility of using the latest programming languages but, above all, the databases can be different and more modern than DL1.
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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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Return on Investment
IBM
  • It has allowed us to use our decades old code and still continue to support the business
  • Allows us to have faster time to market and modernize our systems
  • We can still continue to use our legacy resources for modern systems
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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