NGINX vs. Shape Software

[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.

Incentivized

Shape Software is well suited when using "mainstream" ad platforms that have robust integrations. It also works well when budgets are set less frequently and are allowed to run unchanged for a set period of time. Shape Software gets less accurate when frequent budget changes need to be made and when using ad platforms with little to no support built into Shape Software.

• 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)!

Incentivized

• Platform integrations
• Pacing accuracy
• Automated notifications

• 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.

• Automated budget pacing could be more sophisticated - it tends to conflict with platform best-practices in my opinion.
• Integration with LinkedIn leads would give more accurate picture of conversion volume I believe.
• More customizable alerts

Great value for the product

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Shape Software is very easy to set up and use. The core functions and features require little explanation. The options and settings are easy to find and the capabilities of the platform are apparent to the user after just a few minutes of use.

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.

Incentivized

I never had the need or opportunity to work with support.

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

Incentivized

Shape Software is very user-friendly and easy to set up. The controls and settings are very straightforward and the core functions (onboarding new accounts, creating new budgets, managing budgets, etc) are easily understood. The customizable alerts and budget intervals provide modularity for different situations and provide significant peace-of-mind. The automations are less impressive in that they generally conflict with ad platform automation in my opinion. Automated bidding and budgeting is hindered by third-party automations like Shape Software and the performance Shape Software features provide doesn't justify forgoing that technology in the ad platforms in my opinion.

• 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.

Incentivized

• Reliable protection against overspend
• Precise budget control
• Cross-platform visibility