NGINX

Application Delivery and Security Softwarenginx.com

NGINX, operating as a wholly-owned product line of F5, Inc., provides high-performance web serving, load balancing, API gateway, and Kubernetes connectivity software for cloud-native application teams, enterprise security teams, and AI inference infrastructure.

Company typePrivate
Founded2004
HeadquartersSan Francisco, United States
Headcount251–500
GTM typeB2B
OfferingSoftware

What NGINX does

NGINX, founded by Igor Sysoev in 2004 as an open-source web server project and acquired by F5, Inc. in March 2019 for approximately $670 million, operates today as the cloud-native product line of F5 (NASDAQ: FFIV) alongside the legacy BIG-IP portfolio. Its core technology is a lightweight, high-performance web server, reverse proxy, load balancer, content cache, and API gateway, with cited web-server market share of 30–40% globally and broad use across cloud-native application teams, Kubernetes/container environments, enterprise security teams, and AI inference infrastructure.

The product portfolio spans a free NGINX Open Source data plane, commercial NGINX Plus subscriptions, the NGINX One SaaS management and observability layer, Kubernetes-native NGINX Ingress Controller and NGINX Gateway Fabric, security add-ons F5 WAF for NGINX and F5 DoS for NGINX, NGINX Instance Manager, and NGINXaaS managed services delivered through Azure Marketplace and Google Cloud Platform. Recent platform additions (2025–2026) include F5 AI Guardrails and F5 AI Red Team, built on IP acquired via CalypsoAI in September 2025, positioning NGINX as the inference-traffic and AI-security layer rather than purely a traditional web server. Integration with Chainguard (Commercial Builds) and Docker (Hardened Images) extends NGINX into the cloud-native supply-chain security stack.

Revenue is generated primarily through recurring subscriptions (NGINX Plus, NGINX One, F5 WAF, Instance Manager), usage-based cloud marketplace consumption (NGINXaaS on Azure and Google Cloud), and perpetual licensing under F5's Good Better Best (GBB) and Flex Consumption programs. Go-to-market combines F5's direct enterprise sales force, cloud marketplace co-sell, NGINX consulting partners, and product-led growth through free open-source downloads that convert into paid Plus or One subscriptions. NGINX-specific revenue is not disclosed separately and is embedded within F5's approximately $2.7 billion FY2024 total revenue.

NGINX firmographics

Firmographics

Name: NGINX
Legal name: F5, Inc.
Website: https://nginx.com
Company type: Private
Founded year: 2004
Operating status: Operating
Headcount range: 251–500 employees
Short description: NGINX, operating as a wholly-owned product line of F5, Inc., provides high-performance web serving, load balancing, API gateway, and Kubernetes connectivity software for cloud-native application teams, enterprise security teams, and AI inference infrastructure.
Ownership category
akta.pro rank

NGINX industry classification

Industry

Product category: Application Delivery and Security Software
NAICS: Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (51821), Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151)
SIC: Services-Computer Integrated Systems Design (7373), Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)
akta.pro primary industry: Intent-Based Networking & Automation (NetOps) (HDABAFAF)
akta.pro secondary industries: Kubernetes & Container Platform Management (Private Cloud) (HDABABAC), Cloud Security for Containers & Kubernetes (KSPM/Kubernetes Security) (HDABAHAO), Cloud Networking Core Services (VPC/VNet, Load Balancing, DNS, NAT) (HDABAAAJ)

Keywords

Web server software
Load balancing solutions
API gateway platform
Kubernetes ingress controller
Application delivery controller

Where NGINX is headquartered

Location

Headquarters

HQ city: San Francisco
HQ country: United States
HQ region: North America

Markets served

NGINX business model

Business model

GTM type: B2B
Offering type: Software
Cost components: Technology or R&D, Personnel, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

NGINX Plus Subscriptions: Commercial licensing of NGINX Plus with subscription support, including software updates, security patches, and support services.
NGINX One SaaS: SaaS-based management and observability layer for NGINX with subscription pricing.
NGINXaaS Cloud Services: Managed NGINX services deployed through cloud marketplaces (Azure, Google Cloud) with infrastructure consumption pricing.
F5 WAF for NGINX: Security subscription add-on providing WAF and DoS protection for NGINX deployments.
NGINX Instance Manager: Enterprise management and monitoring of NGINX fleet with subscription licensing.

Pricing tiers

Model	Billing	Price
Freemium	Others	NGINX Open Source - Free tier
Subscription	Annual	NGINX Plus - Commercial licensing
Subscription	Annual	NGINX One - SaaS management
Usage-based	Pay-as-you-go	NGINXaaS - Cloud marketplace

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels7 records

NGINX product offering

Product offering

Core offering

NGINX develops and sells application delivery and security software including a high-performance open source web server (NGINX Open Source), a commercial all-in-one load balancer/reverse proxy/API gateway (NGINX Plus), a SaaS management and observability platform (NGINX One), Kubernetes networking tools (Ingress Controller, Gateway Fabric), an instance manager, and a Web Application Firewall. The company also offers managed NGINX-as-a-Service deployments through Azure and Google Cloud marketplaces for enterprise cloud-native and AI workloads.

Product overview

NGINX (now part of F5) offers a portfolio of products spanning open source software to commercial SaaS offerings. The core is the NGINX data plane (NGINX Open Source), enhanced commercially by NGINX Plus (all-in-one load balancer, reverse proxy, web server, content cache, and API gateway). NGINX One serves as the SaaS management and observability layer coordinating the portfolio. Security is provided through F5 WAF for NGINX and F5 DoS for NGINX. Cloud-native connectivity is addressed via NGINX Ingress Controller and NGINX Gateway Fabric for Kubernetes environments. NGINXaaS provides managed service deployments on Azure and Google Cloud. Instance management is handled by NGINX Instance Manager, with the NGINX One Console providing centralized configuration and monitoring at scale.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

NGINX One: Cloud-native application delivery platform combining NGINX data plane software with SaaS-based tools for observability, management, and security
NGINX Plus
NGINX Ingress Controller
NGINX Gateway Fabric
NGINX Instance Manager
F5 WAF for NGINX
NGINXaaS for Azure
NGINXaaS for Google Cloud

Products and services

NGINX One
NGINX Plus
F5 WAF for NGINX
NGINX Instance Manager
NGINX Ingress Controller
NGINX Gateway Fabric
NGINX One Console
NGINXaaS for Azure
F5 NGINXaaS for Google Cloud
F5 DoS for NGINX

Companies that use NGINX

Customer profile

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

NGINX technology and API

Technology

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API: No
API docs
API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature15 records

NGINX partnerships and signals

Strategic signal

Partnerships

Eight partnerships are on record, tiered core.

DockercoreTechnology or Integration · 19 December 2025NGINX collaborated with Docker on the Hardened Images initiative, contributing to a catalog of 1,000+ hardened container images developed in partnership with major technology vendors.
NVIDIAcoreTechnology or IntegrationTechnology alliance partner providing GPU and AI infrastructure integration for NGINX and F5's AI security and delivery solutions.
Red HatcoreTechnology or IntegrationTechnology alliance partner for Kubernetes and OpenShift integration, including NGINX Ingress Controller compatibility.
CrowdStrikecoreTechnology or IntegrationTechnology alliance partner for security integration, combining NGINX delivery with CrowdStrike endpoint protection.
Google CloudcoreTechnology or IntegrationCloud provider partner offering NGINXaaS for Google Cloud, enabling managed NGINX deployment within Google Cloud environments.
Microsoft AzurecoreTechnology or IntegrationCloud provider partner offering NGINXaaS for Azure, enabling managed NGINX deployment via Azure Marketplace.
Amazon Web ServicescoreTechnology or IntegrationCloud provider partner for AWS deployment, with NGINXaaS for AWS support in development per F5 announcements.
ChainguardcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerF5 NGINX joined Chainguard's Commercial Builds program as an initial partner, delivering secure container images with zero known vulnerabilities and full provenance through Chainguard's Factory platform.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

NGINX competitors and assessment

Company assessment

Direct peers

Envoy Proxy (Tetrate / CNCF): Envoy is a CNCF-graduated service proxy used as the data plane for service mesh and ingress; competes directly with NGINX as a Kubernetes-native proxy and gateway fabric.
HAProxy Technologies: HAProxy is a direct competitor offering an open-source and enterprise load balancer / reverse proxy / API gateway. It competes head-to-head with NGINX Plus for application delivery use cases and on Kubernetes ingress.
Traefik (Traefik Labs): Traefik is a cloud-native edge router and Kubernetes ingress controller used as a direct alternative to NGINX Ingress Controller and NGINX Gateway Fabric. Same target customer and same primary workload.
Kong Inc. Kong is an API gateway and service mesh platform built on Nginx/OpenResty; it competes directly with NGINX Plus for API gateway use cases in cloud-native architectures.

Broad incumbents

Cloudflare: Cloudflare offers a broader application delivery and security platform (CDN, load balancing, WAF, DDoS) that competes with NGINXaaS, F5 WAF for NGINX, and broader F5 application security — at a different scale and bundling.
F5 BIG-IP (NGINX sibling inside F5): F5's legacy BIG-IP ADC line competes for the same enterprise application delivery budgets that NGINX Plus targets; inside the same parent, they increasingly cross-sell into shared accounts.
AWS (Application Load Balancer / API Gateway): AWS ALB, NLB, and API Gateway provide native load balancing and API gateway services that compete with NGINXaaS for AWS for workload deployed on AWS infrastructure.

Emerging players

Istio (Google / CNCF): Istio is a CNCF service mesh that competes with NGINX's service connectivity vision for hybrid multicloud Kubernetes. Increasingly bundled with managed Kubernetes offerings.
Cilium (Isovalent / Cisco): Cilium provides eBPF-based Kubernetes networking, security, and ingress — overlapping with NGINX Gateway Fabric for cloud-native traffic management and policy enforcement.

Others

Apache HTTP Server: The historical incumbent open-source web server against which NGINX originally competed for market share; today more of an alternative than direct competitor for cloud-native workloads.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

NGINX financial estimates

Financial estimate

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

NGINX leadership team

Management profile

Number of profiles

Profiles6 records

NGINX funding detail

Funding detail

Funding overview

Funding rounds5 records

Investors9 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

NGINX M&A and investment

M&A and investment

M&A1 record

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about NGINX

What does NGINX do?

Is NGINX a public or private company?

NGINX is a private company. It is classified as corporate owned and is currently operating.

When was NGINX founded?

NGINX was founded in 2004. It employs 251 to 500 people.

Where is NGINX based?

NGINX is headquartered in San Francisco, United States, in the North America region.

How does NGINX make money?

Five revenue lines are on record. NGINX Plus Subscriptions are the primary driver. The others are NGINX One SaaS, NGINXaaS Cloud Services, F5 WAF for NGINX and NGINX Instance Manager.

Who are NGINX's main competitors?

Direct peers on record are Envoy Proxy (Tetrate / CNCF), HAProxy Technologies, Traefik (Traefik Labs) and Kong Inc.. Broad incumbents are Cloudflare, F5 BIG-IP (NGINX sibling inside F5) and AWS (Application Load Balancer / API Gateway). Emerging players are Istio (Google / CNCF) and Cilium (Isovalent / Cisco). Apache HTTP Server is listed as an others.

Does NGINX have an API?

No public API is recorded for NGINX.

What industry is NGINX in?

NGINX's product category is Application Delivery and Security Software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDABAFAF, Intent-Based Networking & Automation (NetOps), with a secondary code of HDABABAC, Kubernetes & Container Platform Management (Private Cloud). Its NAICS code is 51821 and its SIC code is 7373.