IBM CICS Transaction Server vs. NGINX

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM CICS Transaction Server
Score 9.5 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 9.0 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
Top Pros

No answers on this topic

Top Cons
Features
IBM CICS Transaction ServerNGINX
Application Servers
Comparison of Application Servers features of Product A and Product B
IBM CICS Transaction Server
8.4
1 Ratings
5% above category average
NGINX
8.2
21 Ratings
3% above category average
Security management10.01 Ratings8.018 Ratings
Administration and management10.01 Ratings8.018 Ratings
Application server performance7.01 Ratings8.618 Ratings
Installation10.01 Ratings9.418 Ratings
Open-source standards compliance5.01 Ratings7.916 Ratings
IDE support00 Ratings7.310 Ratings
Best Alternatives
IBM CICS Transaction ServerNGINX
Small Businesses
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.0 out of 10
Apache HTTP Server
Apache HTTP Server
Score 8.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.0 out of 10
Apache Tomcat
Apache Tomcat
Score 8.8 out of 10
Enterprises
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.0 out of 10
Apache Tomcat
Apache Tomcat
Score 8.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
IBM CICS Transaction ServerNGINX
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.9
(48 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.1
(4 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM CICS Transaction ServerNGINX
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM
The strengths of CICS are certainly the scalability. The multilevel architecture of the CICS regions, security, and performance, manages to manage large volumes of transactions with efficient performances.
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F5
[NGINX] is very well suited for high performance. I have seen it used on servers with 1k current connections with no issues. Despite seeing it used in many environments I've never seen software developers use it over apache, express, IIS in local dev environments so it may be more difficult to setup. I've also seen it used to load balance again without issues.
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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
  • Direct internet connection
  • Social connectors
  • Speak Java not only with Websphere
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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
Front end proxy and reverse proxy of Nginx is always useful. I always prefer to Nginx in overall usability when you have application server and database or multiple application servers and single database i.e. clustered application. Nginx provides really good features and flexibility which helps the system administrator in case of troubleshooting and also from the administration perspective. Also, Nginx doesn't delay any request because of internal performance issues.
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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
We have used Traffic, Apache, Google Cloud Load Balancing and other managed cloud-based load balancers. When it comes to scale and customization nothing beats Nginx. We selected Nginx over the others because
  • we have a large number of services and we can manage a single Nginx instance for all of them
  • we have high impact services and Nginx never breaks a sweat under load
  • individual services have special considerations and Nginx lets us configure each one uniquely
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Return on Investment
IBM
  • More scalability than servers
  • More reliability than servers
  • More security
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F5
  • Nginx has decreased the burden of web server administration and maintenance, and we are spending less time on server issues than when we were using Apache.
  • Nginx has allowed more people in our company to get involved with configuring things on the web server, so there's no longer a single point of failure ("the Apache guy").
  • Nginx has given us the ability to handle a larger number of requests without scaling up in hardware quite so quickly.
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ScreenShots

NGINX Screenshots

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