Features	NGINX Open Source	NGINX Plus
Load balancer
HTTP and TCP/UDP support	Yes	Yes
Layer 7 request routing	Yes	Yes
Session persistence	Yes	Yes
Active health checks	No	Yes
DNS service‑discovery integration	No	Yes
Content cache
Static and dynamic content caching	Yes	Yes
Cache‑purging API	No	Yes
Web server and reverse proxy
Origin server for static content	Yes	Yes
Reverse proxy: HTTP, FastCGI, memcached, SCGI, uwsgi	Yes	Yes
HTTP/2 gateway	Yes	Yes
gRPC proxy	Yes	Yes
HTTP/2 server push	Yes	Yes
Security controls
HTTP Basic Authentication	Yes	Yes
HTTP authentication subrequests	Yes	Yes
IP address‑based access control lists	Yes	Yes
Rate limiting	Yes	Yes
Dual‑stack RSA/ECC SSL/TLS offload	Yes	Yes
TLS 1.3 support	Yes	Yes
JWT authentication	No	Yes
OpenID Connect single sign‑on (SSO)	No	Yes
NGINX App Protect (additional cost)	No	Yes
Monitoring
Export to external monitoring tools	Yes	Yes
Built-in dashboard	No	Yes
Extended status with 100+ additional metrics	No	Yes
High availability (HA)
Active‑active and active‑passive modes	No	Yes
Configuration synchronization across cluster	No	Yes
State sharing: sticky‑learn session persistence, rate limiting, key‑value stores	No	Yes
Programmability
NGINX JavaScript module	Yes	Yes
NGINX Plus API for dynamic reconfiguration	No	Yes
Key‑value store	No	Yes
Dynamic reconfiguration without process reloads	No	Yes
Streaming media
Live streaming: RTMP, HLS, DASH	Yes	Yes
VOD: Flash (FLV), MP4	Yes	Yes
Adaptive bitrate VOD: HLS, HDS	No	Yes
MP4 bandwidth controls	No	Yes
Third-party ecosystem
Ingress controller	Yes	Yes
OpenShift Router	Yes	Yes
Dynamic modules repository	No	Yes
Commercial support	No	Yes