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AWS Elastic Load Balancing VS NGINX Plus

Compare AWS Elastic Load Balancing VS NGINX Plus and see what are their differences

AWS Elastic Load Balancing logo AWS Elastic Load Balancing

Amazon ELB automatically distributes incoming application traffic across multiple Amazon EC2 instances in the cloud.

NGINX Plus logo NGINX Plus

NGINX Plus is an open-source software load balancer that improves the speed of the applications and enhances the distribution of workloads.
  • AWS Elastic Load Balancing Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-27
  • NGINX Plus Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-12-30

AWS Elastic Load Balancing features and specs

  • Scalability
    AWS Elastic Load Balancing can automatically distribute incoming application traffic across multiple targets, such as Amazon EC2 instances, containers, and IP addresses, promoting application elasticity.
  • Health Monitoring
    It continually checks the health of the registered targets, ensuring that traffic is routed only to healthy instances.
  • Security
    Integrated with AWS's Certificate Manager and Application Load Balancer, allowing easy deployment of SSL/TLS for secure communication.
  • Flexibility
    Supports various types of load balancers: Application, Network, and Classic, each suited to different types of application architectures and requirements.
  • Cost-effective
    Pay-as-you-go pricing model ensures you only pay for the resources you use, which can lead to cost savings compared to a fixed-cost solution.
  • Integration
    Seamlessly integrates with other AWS services such as Auto Scaling, Route 53, CloudWatch, and more for a more robust solution.

Possible disadvantages of AWS Elastic Load Balancing

  • Complexity
    Initial setup and configuration can be complex, especially for users unfamiliar with AWS services and cloud architecture.
  • Cost
    While the pay-as-you-go model is cost-effective, the charges can ramp up quickly, especially for high-traffic applications.
  • Dependence on AWS Ecosystem
    Highly integrated with AWS services, making it less ideal for multi-cloud or hybrid cloud environments.
  • Latency
    In some cases, the load balancer can introduce a slight increase in latency, which might be a concern for latency-sensitive applications.
  • Configuration Limitations
    Some specific configurations and customizations may not be possible, leading to constraints on certain types of applications.

NGINX Plus features and specs

  • Scalability
    NGINX Plus can efficiently handle a large number of simultaneous connections, making it ideal for high-traffic websites and services.
  • Advanced Load Balancing
    Offers sophisticated load balancing features that can optimize traffic distribution across multiple servers and ensure high availability.
  • Performance
    Known for its speed and efficiency, NGINX Plus can significantly reduce latency and improve overall application performance.
  • Security Features
    Includes robust security tools such as WAF (Web Application Firewall) and DDoS mitigation to protect applications from common vulnerabilities and attacks.
  • Support and Updates
    Provides commercial support with regular updates and technical assistance to address potential issues and maintain optimal performance.
  • Session Persistence
    Supports session persistence to maintain a consistent user experience by directing requests from the same client to the same server.
  • Integrated Monitoring
    Offers integrated monitoring and management tools to help administrators keep track of server performance and issues.

Possible disadvantages of NGINX Plus

  • Cost
    As a commercial product, NGINX Plus comes with licensing fees, which may be expensive for small businesses or projects with budget constraints.
  • Complexity
    Setting up and configuring NGINX Plus can be complex, requiring expertise and possibly a steep learning curve for those unfamiliar with it.
  • Limited Windows Support
    NGINX Plus is primarily designed for Unix-based systems, providing limited support and optimization for Windows environments.
  • Feature Overlap
    Many functionalities in NGINX Plus might overlap with existing solutions in use, which could lead to redundant tools and increased complexity.
  • Dependency on Ecosystem
    NGINX Plus can heavily integrate with other products in its ecosystem, potentially leading to dependencies that can affect flexibility or adaptability.

Analysis of AWS Elastic Load Balancing

Overall verdict

  • AWS Elastic Load Balancing is generally considered a good choice for managing traffic distribution in cloud-based applications. Its integration with other AWS services, reliability, and ability to handle varying workloads make it a strong contender for enterprises leveraging Amazon Web Services.

Why this product is good

  • AWS Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) is widely regarded as effective because it provides automated distribution of incoming application or network traffic across multiple targets, such as Amazon EC2 instances, containers, and IP addresses. This helps improve the availability and fault tolerance of applications. ELB supports dynamic scaling, which means it can automatically adjust to handle spikes in traffic. Additionally, it is integrated with AWS services, providing a seamless experience for users already within the AWS ecosystem.

Recommended for

    AWS Elastic Load Balancing is recommended for businesses and developers who are operating in the AWS ecosystem and require reliable load balancing solutions for their applications. It's especially beneficial for those needing to manage traffic across multiple applications and services, and for organizations looking for scalability and integration with AWS tools.

AWS Elastic Load Balancing videos

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NGINX Plus videos

Master in Nginx | Nginx PlusTutorial | Nginx complete Tutorial -1

More videos:

  • Review - Dynamic Load Balancing with Consul and Nginx Plus

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to AWS Elastic Load Balancing and NGINX Plus)
Web Servers
87 87%
13% 13
Web And Application Servers
Load Balancer / Reverse Proxy
API Tools
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, AWS Elastic Load Balancing should be more popular than NGINX Plus. It has been mentiond 25 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

AWS Elastic Load Balancing mentions (25)

  • Basic AWS Elastic Load Balancer Setup
    Load balancers can be categorized to different types depending on their use cases. On a broader classification, we can divide load balancers into three different categories based on how they are deployed. 1. Hardware load balancers - Dedicated physical appliances designed for high-performance traffic distribution. They are often used by large scale enterprises and data centers that require minimum latency and... - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • Work Stealing: Load-balancing for compute-heavy tasks
    When a backend starts or stops, something needs to update, whether it’s Consul, kube-proxy, ELB, or otherwise. To stop a worker without incurring failures, you need to prevent the load balancer from sending new requests and then finishing existing ones. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • Load Balancers in AWS
    In this way, you can create a load balancer and custom rules using AWS Elastic Load Balancer. You can refer the official user guide to learn more about load balancing in AWS. - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • A Ride Through Optimising Legacy Spring Boot Services For High Throughput
    Use load balancers and distribute load accordingly to your redundant spring boot services. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • DevSecOps with AWS- Ephemeral Environments – Creating test Environments On-Demand - Part 1
    • Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) is a fully managed container orchestration service that helps you easily deploy, manage, and scale containerized applications. • AWS Fargate is a serverless, pay-as-you-go compute engine that lets you focus on building applications without managing servers. AWS Fargate is compatible with both Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) and Amazon Elastic... - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
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NGINX Plus mentions (15)

  • Mastering Microservices: A Hands-On Tutorial with Node.js, RabbitMQ, Nginx, and Docker
    For setting up Nginx as a reverse proxy, you can follow the installation instructions on Nginx's official documentation. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Help finding downloadable Nginx docs in either pdf or text format
    I need to download the Nginx help files directly into my custom data directory, and I know that text or pdf works - not sure about the html version but would try. All I can find is the online content at nginx.com - if I'm missing a download link please help! Source: almost 2 years ago
  • kind - Setting up CNI using Calico - Part 7
    $ kubectl run busybox --image=busybox --restart=Never --rm -it -- wget -O- http://nginx If you don't see a command prompt, try pressing enter. Warning: couldn't attach to pod/busybox, falling back to streaming logs: Internal error occurred: error attaching to container: failed to load task: no running task found: task 9268947ec3741ac1bad25fab9454c9c56e51131e7d65098993a87a96ed7ea7d7 not found: not found Connecting... - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
  • Docker networking: Network Namespaces, Docker and DNS
    Docker compose exec nginx_a curl nginx_b Welcome to nginx! Html { color-scheme: light dark; } Body { width: 35em; margin: 0 auto; Font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; } Welcome to nginx! If you... - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Should we tell him?
    The solution is obvious: you should contact nginx.com for help. It says so on that there. Source: almost 3 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing AWS Elastic Load Balancing and NGINX Plus, you can also consider the following products

nginx - A high performance free open source web server powering busiest sites on the Internet.

Traefik - Load Balancer / Reverse Proxy

Nginx Proxy Manager - Docker container and built in Web Application for managing Nginx proxy hosts with a simple, powerful interface, providing free SSL support via Let's Encrypt

Google Cloud Load Balancing - Google Cloud Load Balancer enables users to scale their applications on Google Compute Engine.

BunkerWeb - BunkerWeb is a next-generation and open-source Web Application Firewall (WAF).

Azure Traffic Manager - Microsoft Azure Traffic Manager allows you to control the distribution of user traffic for service endpoints in different datacenters.