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Read 53 IIS reviews
7,247 views|5,808 comparisons
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6,510 views|5,261 comparisons
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Mar 6, 2024

We compared IIS and NGINX Plus based on our user's reviews in several parameters.

IIS and NGINX Plus both offer robust performance and excellent customer support, with IIS focusing on seamless integration with Microsoft products and extensive security measures, while NGINX Plus stands out for scalability and load balancing capabilities. IIS is praised for its user-friendly interface and pricing transparency, whereas NGINX Plus receives positive feedback for its performance optimization and flexible pricing. Areas for improvement include enhancing performance, increasing reliability, addressing security concerns, and improving user interface for IIS, while NGINX Plus users seek more advanced features in load balancing, better documentation, improved integration, and expanded protocol support. Overall, both products have positive returns on investment, with users expressing satisfaction with their benefits and value.

Features: The valuable features of IIS include robust performance, seamless integration with other Microsoft products, extensive security measures, a user-friendly interface, and outstanding support. In comparison, NGINX Plus offers scalability, efficient handling of high traffic loads, robust load balancing, advanced caching, seamless integration with applications and tools, performance optimization, reliable session persistence, and comprehensive monitoring capabilities.

Pricing and ROI: The setup cost for IIS is mentioned to be straightforward with no additional expenses. On the other hand, NGINX Plus is regarded as both reasonable and straightforward in terms of setup cost. Users find the pricing and licensing structure of both products to be reasonable and transparent., The ROI from IIS implementation has been highly positive and beneficial based on user feedback. Users also reported positive returns on investment with NGINX Plus, expressing satisfaction with its benefits and value.

Room for Improvement: IIS has room for improvement in performance, reliability, security, user interface, compatibility, and documentation. In comparison, users believe NGINX Plus could benefit from advanced load balancing features, improved documentation, better integration, and expanded protocol support.

Deployment and customer support: The reviews for IIS suggest that the duration required for establishing a new tech solution can range from one week to three months, with varying timeframes for deployment and setup. In contrast, the reviews for NGINX Plus indicate that the duration can vary from several months to a week, with separate timeframes for deployment and setup. The reviews highlight that the time required for establishing the tech solution using NGINX Plus can vary based on individual needs and circumstances., IIS's customer service is highly praised for their helpfulness, responsiveness, and expertise in addressing technical issues. They provide prompt assistance, clear guidance, practical solutions, and are willing to go the extra mile. NGINX Plus also receives positive feedback for their customer service. Users appreciate the prompt and effective assistance, knowledgeable support team, thorough explanations, and excellent customer service experience. They feel valued and supported throughout their interactions.

The summary above is based on 48 interviews we conducted recently with IIS and NGINX Plus users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.

To learn more, read our detailed IIS vs. NGINX Plus Report (Updated: March 2024).
763,955 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"It's good and offers good usability.""The tool is very easy to use and efficient.""This is definitely a stable solution.""The most valuable feature of IIS is that it's free, and it works.""The graphical user interface makes it easy for users to configure the sites.""The solution is easy to use.""IIS has a very simple and user-friendly interface, which helps a lot in effective and efficient management.""We use the solution for our customer's web applications."

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"NGINX Plus also has NGINX App Protect. It's a separate module, which is inspired by the F5 apps.""The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is simple to configure.""With NGINX, I appreciate its ability to route traffic geographically.""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.""When I worked in a security research center, we tested NGINX to support DoS and DDoS attacks, and its results were great.""Nginx is simple to configure, very stable in a highly utilized environment and very modular, allowing DevOps to create it's own modules for interactive use with Nginx.""​Zero Downtime has always been a strength in recommending infrastructure web services. NGINX allows me to execute such infrastructure with less complications and the ability to switch from server to server easily.​""-"

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Cons
"IIS has some stability issues and needs restarting.""The solution's black box is not fast.""It lacks a few performance improvement tools.""The areas of this solution that need improvement are monitoring, debugging, and troubleshooting.""We'd like future versions to be more stable.""The platform's stability could be better.""The price of the solution could be less to improve.""The graphical user interface has room for improvement and can be more user-friendly."

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"I would like to see the Grafana integration in NGINX which is already present in HAProxy. Grafana integration will help the solution visualize all the data analytics on the dashboard which is currently not present.""I would like it to have a more user-friendly graphical interface.""Improvement needed in NGINX Plus could focus on optimizing memory usage for users.""The biggest room for improvement would be to allow NGINX Core machines to cluster for memory zones in some way with a plug and play module. ​""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.​""If NGINX brings some features for health check in the open source version, it would be better. ​""The scalability could be improved.""There is room for improvement in the pricing model."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "It is licensed with your Windows installation which makes it relatively cheap if you already have a Windows Server sitting around."
  • "This solution comes included with Windows Server."
  • "The price of the cloud system is a bit high."
  • "The price of Windows Server IIS is expensive. They have a large user base, and they charge a little bit too much."
  • "We purchased a Microsoft Windows license and the license for IIS came in the package."
  • "I think it's part of the Windows Server, so you won't have any other costs to add in order to use the IIS service."
  • "I was using the trial version of IIS inside my virtual machines."
  • "I give the price of the solution a five out of ten."
  • More IIS Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Nginx is free. I don't have experience with the Plus version."
  • "I am not so happy with their pricing policy, but this is not the worse thing in my life. I can tolerate it."
  • "​NGINX Plus is worth it, if you need it. If you do not need the features or support, the free and open source package is more than capable. ​"
  • "​NGINX is a free tool in Brazil. There are some companies which do support it.​"
  • "The price is the cost to contract support with a specialized company, usually during consulting hours.​"
  • "Compared to other similar solutions on the market, I think it's over-priced."
  • "You pay for each feature that you want."
  • "The list price of NGINX Plus is close to $5,500."
  • More NGINX Plus Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:IIS is a flexible, secure, and manageable web server to host anything on the web. IIS’s scalable and open architecture can handle the most demanding tasks. From media streaming to web applications… more »
    Top Answer:The product is cost-effective. We do not have to buy it. The tool is included with Windows. We license the Windows environment on a monthly basis. It is expensive. Sometimes, it is cheaper to run… more »
    Top Answer:The solution must improve its performance. Sometimes, it could be because of how a customer has implemented the tool, but it is a potential bottleneck. The product must provide a holistic view of… more »
    Ranking
    Views
    7,247
    Comparisons
    5,808
    Reviews
    33
    Average Words per Review
    296
    Rating
    8.1
    Views
    6,510
    Comparisons
    5,261
    Reviews
    13
    Average Words per Review
    406
    Rating
    8.5
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Windows Server IIS
    NGINX
    Learn More
    Overview
    Internet Information Services (IIS) provides a secure, easy-to-manage, modular and extensible platform for reliably hosting websites, services and applications. With IIS, you get choice and control without giving up reliability or security.

    NGINX Plus is a versatile solution that offers load balancing, caching, proxying, and API deployment capabilities. It can be deployed on private or public clouds and is ideal for building CDN solutions. The solution can also be used to secure web applications and replace web services like Apache. 

    NGINX has helped organizations improve functioning, reduce downtimes, and offer a DevOps-friendly solution. Its community support and documentation are highly regarded, and its configuration is more straightforward, making it a recommended choice over HAProxy.

    Sample Customers
    Erste Bank Group, NJVC, Samsung Electronics, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Tata Steel Europe, Urban Software Institute
    Locaweb, AppNexus, Wix, Reliam, Montana Interactive, MuleSoft, Warpwire, Discovery Education, InkaBinka, WordPress.com, Gogo, GOV.UK, NASA
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Comms Service Provider14%
    Manufacturing Company11%
    Transportation Company11%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company13%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Comms Service Provider11%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider25%
    Computer Software Company25%
    Energy/Utilities Company17%
    Media Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company15%
    Financial Services Firm14%
    Comms Service Provider11%
    Government7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business50%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise38%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise63%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business61%
    Large Enterprise39%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise61%
    Buyer's Guide
    IIS vs. NGINX Plus
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about IIS vs. NGINX Plus and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    763,955 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    IIS is ranked 1st in Application Infrastructure with 36 reviews while NGINX Plus is ranked 2nd in Application Infrastructure with 16 reviews. IIS is rated 8.0, while NGINX Plus is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of IIS writes "Easy to install, and integrate with the operating system". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NGINX Plus writes "Quick installation and very easy to manage while doing orchestration or automation". IIS is most compared with Apache Web Server, Tomcat, Oracle WebLogic Server, JBoss and Microsoft .NET Framework, whereas NGINX Plus is most compared with HAProxy, Kemp LoadMaster, F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM), Apache Web Server and Citrix NetScaler. See our IIS vs. NGINX Plus report.

    See our list of best Application Infrastructure vendors.

    We monitor all Application Infrastructure reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.