F5 NGINX Plus
NGINX Plus is an enterprise-grade application delivery platform that provides high-performance load balancing, content caching, and API gateway capabilities to ensure your applications are fast, secure, and always available.
Payara Server
Payara Server is an open-source application server that provides a reliable and supported platform for hosting Jakarta EE and MicroProfile applications in cloud and hybrid environments.
Quick Comparison
| Feature | F5 NGINX Plus | Payara Server |
|---|---|---|
| Website | f5.com | payara.fish |
| Pricing Model | Custom | Freemium |
| Starting Price | Custom Pricing | Free |
| FREE Trial | ✓ 30 days free trial | ✓ 15 days free trial |
| Free Plan | ✘ No free plan | ✓ Has free plan |
| Product Demo | ✓ Request demo here | ✓ Request demo here |
| Deployment | ||
| Integrations | ||
| Target Users | ||
| Target Industries | ||
| Customer Count | 0 | 0 |
| Founded Year | 2011 | 2016 |
| Headquarters | Seattle, USA | Malvern, United Kingdom |
Overview
F5 NGINX Plus
NGINX Plus is an enterprise-ready version of the popular open-source web server, designed to help you manage high-traffic applications with ease. You can use it as a load balancer, content cache, and API gateway all in one, which simplifies your infrastructure and reduces the number of tools you need to maintain. It provides you with real-time monitoring and active health checks to ensure your traffic always reaches a healthy server.
You can deploy it across any environment, including on-premises, cloud, or containers, giving you total flexibility as your architecture evolves. It solves common performance bottlenecks by offloading SSL/TLS processing and compressing content before it reaches your users. Whether you are managing a few microservices or a massive global application, it provides the reliability and security features required for production-grade environments.
Payara Server
Payara Server provides you with a robust, open-source platform for deploying Jakarta EE applications. It serves as a direct replacement for GlassFish, offering enhanced stability and security features specifically designed for production environments. You can run your enterprise Java applications with confidence, knowing the platform supports the latest industry standards like MicroProfile and Jakarta EE.
You can choose between the Community Edition for development and testing or the Enterprise Edition for mission-critical production workloads. The software helps you bridge the gap between traditional monolithic architectures and modern microservices. Whether you are deploying on-premise, in the cloud, or using Docker containers, you get a consistent environment that simplifies your development lifecycle and operational management.
Overview
F5 NGINX Plus Features
- Advanced Load Balancing Distribute traffic across your server pools using sophisticated algorithms to ensure no single server becomes a bottleneck.
- Active Health Checks Automatically detect and bypass failed servers in real-time so your users never experience an application error or timeout.
- API Gateway Manage your API traffic with authentication, rate limiting, and fine-grained access control to protect your backend microservices.
- Dynamic Reconfiguration Update your upstream server groups on the fly without restarting the process or dropping any active connections.
- Real-Time Monitoring Access over 100 detailed performance metrics through a live dashboard to troubleshoot issues before they impact your customers.
- Content Caching Accelerate your application by storing static and dynamic content at the edge to reduce load on your servers.
Payara Server Features
- Jakarta EE Support. Build and deploy enterprise applications using the latest Jakarta EE standards for full compatibility and long-term stability.
- MicroProfile Integration. Optimize your microservices with built-in support for MicroProfile APIs, including health checks, metrics, and fault tolerance.
- Payara Insight. Monitor your application performance in real-time with a built-in visual dashboard that identifies bottlenecks before they impact users.
- Auto-Clustering. Scale your applications horizontally with ease using Hazelcast-powered data grids that sync session data across multiple nodes automatically.
- Security Hardening. Protect your data with advanced security features like certificate management, audit logging, and integrated identity store wrappers.
- Cloud Connectors. Connect your applications to cloud-native messaging systems like Amazon SQS and Azure Service Bus without writing custom integration code.
Pricing Comparison
F5 NGINX Plus Pricing
Payara Server Pricing
- Open-source license
- Jakarta EE & MicroProfile support
- Community forum access
- Regular monthly releases
- Docker & Kubernetes ready
- Everything in Community, plus:
- 10-year software lifecycle
- 24/7 mission-critical support
- Hot patches and security fixes
- Payara Insight monitoring
- Migration & upgrade assistance
Pros & Cons
F5 NGINX Plus
Pros
- Extremely low memory footprint even under heavy loads
- Seamless configuration updates without requiring service restarts
- Excellent documentation makes complex setups easy to follow
- Reliable active health checks prevent user-facing errors
Cons
- Steep learning curve for advanced configuration syntax
- Pricing can be high for large-scale container deployments
- Requires manual configuration for some advanced security modules
Payara Server
Pros
- Seamless migration path for existing GlassFish users
- Excellent support for modern microservices standards
- Active community and frequent update cycles
- Strong performance in high-availability clustered environments
Cons
- Enterprise support requires custom pricing quotes
- Documentation can be dense for beginners
- Higher memory footprint than some lightweight runtimes