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Web Server Load Balancing with NGINX Plus
Wondering about the value you gain from upgrading from NGINX Open Source to NGINX Plus?

Check out this side-by-side comparison of popular features and use cases.

 

Features
NGINX Open Source
NGINX Plus
NGINXaaS for Azure
Load balancer
    HTTP and TCP/UDP support
    Layer 7 request routing
    Session persistence
Sticky Cookie and Sticky Route Only
    Active health checks
    DNS service‑discovery integration
Content cache
    Static and dynamic content caching
    Cache‑purging API
    MQTT protocol support for IOT devices
Web server and reverse proxy
    Origin server for static content
    Reverse proxy: HTTP, FastCGI, memcached, SCGI, uwsgi
    HTTP/2 gateway
    gRPC proxy
    HTTP/2 server push
    HTTP/3 over QUIC
Security controls
    HTTP Basic Authentication
    HTTP authentication subrequests
    IP address‑based access control lists
    Rate limiting
    Dual‑stack RSA/ECC SSL/TLS offload
    TLS 1.3 support
    JWT authentication
    OpenID Connect single sign‑on (SSO)
    Internal redirect
    NGINX as a SAML Service Provider
    NGINX App Protect (additional cost)
Monitoring
    Export to external monitoring tools
Export Metrics to Azure Monitor
    Built-in dashboard
Azure Monitor and Azure Portal
    Extended status with 100+ additional metrics
    Native Open Telemetry Tracing
High availability (HA)
    Active‑active
    Active‑passive
N/A
    Configuration synchronization across cluster
    State sharing: sticky‑learn session persistence, rate limiting, key‑value stores
Programmability
    NGINX JavaScript module
    NGINX Plus API for dynamic reconfiguration
    Key‑value store
    Dynamic reconfiguration without process reloads
Streaming media
    Live streaming: RTMP, HLS, DASH
    VOD: Flash (FLV), MP4
    Adaptive bitrate VOD: HLS, HDS
    MP4 bandwidth controls
Third-party ecosystem
    Ingress controller
    OpenShift Router
    Dynamic modules repository
Image-Filter, njs, OpenTelemetry, XSLT
    Deployable as a service
Microsoft Azure
    Commercial support