Load balancers · November 2026 Edition
NGINX vs AWS Application Load Balancer
Three of fourteen models named NGINX first on the direct prompt; two named AWS Application Load Balancer. NGINX was named by fourteen of the fourteen models and AWS Application Load Balancer by ten and NGINX carries 57 labels and AWS Application Load Balancer 14, so the shares are not directly comparable.
Named in four categories this edition.
AWS Application Load Balancer
accepted challengerNamed in one category this edition.
First-choice share16%4%Of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, 0 to 100.
Negative rate7%14%Negative labels as a share of the product's labels, 0 to 100.
Rank in category#2#7A position in a field of 16; printed, not drawn.
Labels5714A count; the two differ.
The two percentage rows are drawn on one 0 to 100 track, NGINX reading right to left. Rank and label count are printed, not drawn.HAProxy was named alongside these two in eleven of the fourteen direct answers. HAProxy vs NGINX · HAProxy vs AWS Application Load Balancer · NGINX vs Kemp LoadMaster
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category; every quote names the model and the prompt it came from. Both figures come from the load balancers page.
By framing
How many of the fourteen models made each the first choice, per way of asking, and how many argued against it.
NGINXFirst choices, of fourteen modelsAWS Application Load BalancerDirect32
Paraphrase001 against NGINX
Comparative00
Budget-constrained30
Scale-constrained20
Negative003 against NGINX · 2 against AWS Application Load Balancer
Bars are first choices, 0 to 14 each sideModels that argued againstA model can name both, so the two sides of a row do not sum to fourteen.
Every model, every framing
The eighty-four answers behind the chart above, one cell each: where NGINX and AWS Application Load Balancer stood in it.
| Model | DirectAA | ParaphraseAA | ComparativeAA | Budget-constrainedAA | Scale-constrainedAA | NegativeAA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | AA | | | |||
| GPT-5.4 mini | AA | | | | ||
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | AA | | | | | |
| Perplexity Sonar | | | AA | |||
| Grok 4.20 | | | | | | |
| Mistral Small | | | ||||
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | | | | | | |
| Llama 4 Maverick | | | ||||
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | | AA | | | | |
| Kimi K2 | | | | | ||
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | | | AA | |||
| MiniMax M2.5 | AA | AA | | | ||
| GPT-6 Luna | AA | |||||
| Muse Glimmer 30B | | | AA |
NGINXAA AWS Application Load Balancer first choice named as an alternative argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, NGINX on the left and AWS Application Load Balancer on the right.The direct prompt
The plain question, one answer per model, grouped by where NGINX and AWS Application Load Balancer stood in it.
NGINX first, AWS Application Load Balancer not the choice
3 of 14 modelsAWS Application Load Balancer was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Mistral SmallNGINX alternatives: Citrix ADC, F5 BIG-IP, HAProxy, Kemp LoadMaster, Loadbalancer.org Enterprise ADC
Llama 4 MaverickNGINX alternatives: Citrix ADC, F5 BIG-IP, HAProxy, Kemp LoadMaster
Qwen 3.7 FlashNGINX alternatives: Application Load Balancer, HAProxy
AWS Application Load Balancer first, NGINX an alternative
2 of 14 modelsNGINX was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Claude Haiku 4.5AWS Application Load Balancer, Azure Load Balancer, Network Load Balancer alternatives: Google Cloud Load Balancing, NGINX
GPT-5.4 miniAWS Application Load Balancer alternatives: AWS Network Load Balancer, Cloudflare Load Balancing, Google Cloud Application Load Balancer
Neither was the first choice, one was named
7 of 14 modelsThe answer put something else first and named one of the two as an alternative.Gemini 3.5 FlashCloudflare Load Balancing alternatives: AWS Application Load Balancer, Azure Application Gateway, GCP Cloud Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINX, Progress Kemp LoadMaster
Perplexity SonarProgress Kemp LoadMaster alternatives: AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Cloudflare Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINX
Grok 4.20HAProxy alternatives: AWS Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) – ALB/NLB, Cloudflare Load Balancing, Loadbalancer.org Enterprise ADC, NGINX, Progress Kemp LoadMaster
DeepSeek V4 FlashHAProxy, Progress Kemp LoadMaster alternatives: NGINX
GLM 4.7 FlashXProgress Kemp LoadMaster alternatives: Cloudflare Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINX
MiniMax M2.5no first choice alternatives: AWS Application Load Balancer, Azure Load Balancer, Citrix ADC, F5 BIG-IP, Google Cloud Load Balancing, HAProxy, NGINX
Muse Glimmer 30BHAProxy alternatives: AWS Elastic Load Balancing, Azure Load Balancer, NGINX, Progress Kemp LoadMaster
Neither was named
2 of 14 modelsThe answer made no first choice from these two in this category.Kimi K2Kemp LoadMaster alternatives: HAProxy
GPT-6 LunaApplication Load Balancer alternatives: Application Gateway, External Application Load Balancer, Front Door, Network Load Balancer
Bold names in an answer are the products the judge labeled a first choice; a model naming several gives each of them that label. The full answer text for every row is in the record.
By buyer segment
The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment and they are never added together. The figures above are the mid-market standing, which is the one the category orders by.
Small business
NGINX leads by five points.
NGINX12%#3 of 14AWS Application Load Balancer7%#5 of 14
The full small business standing →Mid-marketThe figures above
NGINX leads by twelve points.
NGINX16%#2 of 16AWS Application Load Balancer4%#7 of 16
The full mid-market standing →Enterprise
Level: the same share of first choices.
NGINX2%#6 of 16AWS Application Load Balancer2%#12 of 16
The full enterprise standing →What the models said about NGINX
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Five of five in this category shown.
“Recent critical vulnerabilities (e.g., CVEs from 2024–2026 patches by F5) can lead to crashes, denial-of-service (DoS), or remote code execution.” Grok 4.20 · negative prompt · soft negative
“Running a single NGINX or HAProxy instance as your load balancer creates a single point of failure” Kimi K2 · negative prompt · soft negative
“Consider NGINX Plus or HAProxy Enterprise if you have strong Linux/SysAdmin skills. They offer the best performance-to-cost ratio” Qwen 3.7 Flash · scale prompt · first choice
“Kemp LoadMaster (mid-size friendly ADC) and NGINX Plus (if you have Linux/NGINX skills) are strong fits” DeepSeek V4 Flash · scale prompt · first choice
“NGINX Plus often being the best fit for mid-market B2B companies seeking a reliable and scalable solution” Mistral Small · direct prompt · first choice
What the models said about AWS Application Load Balancer
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Five of six in this category shown.
“AWS ALB is unsuitable for workloads requiring L4 forwarding, ultra-low-latency pass-through, or non-HTTP protocols; use NLB or the appropriate L4 service instead.” Perplexity Sonar · negative prompt · soft negative
“ALB is not the right choice when the workload is non-HTTP (use NLB)” Muse Glimmer 30B · negative prompt · soft negative
“I'd recommend starting with AWS ALB or Azure Load Balancer (depending on your cloud provider)” Claude Haiku 4.5 · direct prompt · first choice
“AWS-centric company: AWS Application Load Balancer for web apps” GPT-5.4 mini · direct prompt · first choice
“Cloud-first, mostly HTTP(S) APIs, limited ops staff | AWS ALB, Azure Application Gateway, Google Cloud Load Balancing” MiniMax M2.5 · direct prompt · alternative
Also compared
HAProxy vs NGINXHAProxy vs AWS Application Load BalancerNGINX vs Kemp LoadMasterNGINX vs Progress Kemp LoadMasterNGINX vs AWS Elastic Load BalancingNGINX vs A10 Thunder ADCNGINX vs Cloudflare Load BalancingKemp LoadMaster vs AWS Application Load BalancerProgress Kemp LoadMaster vs AWS Application Load BalancerAWS Elastic Load Balancing vs AWS Application Load BalancerA10 Thunder ADC vs AWS Application Load BalancerAWS Application Load Balancer vs Cloudflare Load BalancingAll twenty-eight head-to-head pages and the full load balancers standing
Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category, each against each. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.