We performed a comparison between IBM WebSphere Application Server and NGINX Plus based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Application Infrastructure solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."What's most valuable in IBM WebSphere Application Server is its resilience. When you use the solution, you know that after the communication has been done, there will be no doubt that the data has reached its destination."
"Security: It is compatible with the latest Java 8 security features, supports FIPS 140-2 and NIST SP 800-53 with strong ciphers and cryptography keys, and supports TLS 1.2 completely. Also, configuring client and server certificates is relatively easy."
"Ease of administration: It has an Integrated Solutions Console, what we call the administrative console, with very detailed configurations and Help pages for each configurable item."
"The VPN service is quite useful."
"The solution is very stable and robust."
"IBM WAS is the backbone for our enterprise content management suite which delivers the primary processes for our customers. Without a good application server, it would be hard to provide a secure layer of midddleware upon which the other applications run. IBM WAS improves the stability of the entire solution and provides a high quality platform for running web-based solutions."
"We needed this type of integration and WebShepere is the best tool for it."
"The solution is robust. The connection management and the scalability, which IBM provides to the Stack, are also valuable."
"The load balancing module, which is equivalent to LTM, is the focus of the PSE. So far, the features of both are identical. I believe NGINX has more features for securing these services, but in terms of load balancing, both are massive solutions."
"The flexibility of its modules allow it to be scalable."
"With NGINX, I appreciate its ability to route traffic geographically."
"When I worked in a security research center, we tested NGINX to support DoS and DDoS attacks, and its results were great."
"Valuable features include authentication, caching, reverse proxy routing, and load balancing."
"The robust software architecture allows for it to be scalable and very stable."
"Using NGINX Plus for web traffic distribution is fantastic. It offers performance similar to physical load balancers but with added flexibility."
"It's lightweight software that can handle heavy loads efficiently."
"The business logic side of it is sort of missing in the sense that if I want to track and measure velocity, it is not really available. You have to buy another application and embark on a separate implementation. Instead of having different licensing, IBM DataPower should be integrated with WebSphere. It will allow us to build the business layer and rules a lot more efficiently, rather than developing rules within the application. It would be good if we can set up the business layer through parametrization rather than development. IBM DataPower has the business rule and the controls, and if it can be integrated, it would be fantastic. It will help the application in working better in terms of security features and business logic. If you're going to use it for open banking, you will be able to monitor velocity on the total pricing."
"The solution consumes hardware."
"What could be improved in IBM WebSphere Application Server is its interconnection with other products, for example, Kafka. What I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is a better graphical user interface."
"The footprint could be reduced so that we can use a smaller virtual machine to run the application. We could also use more scripts. I would like this solution to be more script oriented, rather than GUI oriented."
"While WebSphere mostly supports IBM HTTP Server (IHS) as the web server plugin, I think it would be beneficial if it also supported Apache and NGINX web servers. That would give customers more flexibility in their choices."
"In spite of the solution's robustness, it is expensive and a bit difficult to support."
"It should be able to serve more concurrent requests like Oracle. Oracle has more powerful stability, availability, and real-time serving."
"Installing or configuring a WAS server instance as a Windows Service causes a lot of problems, especially when the server needs credentials to stop."
"I would suggest adding GUI-based configuration panels to NGINX Plus to simplify setup and management tasks."
"The scalability could be improved."
"Make modules easier to enable or disable. The beauty and ugly side of the NGINX modules is you have to know how to compile the module. For beginners or non-very technical aspirant(s) going for NGINX, they have to learn how to compile the modules."
"NGINX Plus is moderately priced, but it could give better value for money."
"The KPI should be more focused on load balancing and the latency in application calling from the end system."
"I would like it to have a more user-friendly graphical interface."
"The solution must improve its performance."
"Improvement needed in NGINX Plus could focus on optimizing memory usage for users."
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IBM WebSphere Application Server is ranked 5th in Application Infrastructure with 26 reviews while NGINX Plus is ranked 2nd in Application Infrastructure with 28 reviews. IBM WebSphere Application Server is rated 7.8, while NGINX Plus is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of IBM WebSphere Application Server writes "Compatible, stable, and scalable". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NGINX Plus writes "Quick installation and very easy to manage while doing orchestration or automation". IBM WebSphere Application Server is most compared with JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, JBoss, Tomcat, Oracle WebLogic Server and Oracle Fusion Middleware, whereas NGINX Plus is most compared with IIS, HAProxy, Kemp LoadMaster, F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and Microsoft .NET Framework. See our IBM WebSphere Application Server vs. NGINX Plus report.
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