What Does F5’s $670 Million Purchase of Nginx Signal for the Cloud‑Native Future?

On March 11, F5 announced it will acquire the company behind the popular open‑source web server Nginx for $670 million, ending previous talks with Citrix that fell through over price.

F5, a Seattle‑based provider of cloud and security application services, is shifting from hardware to software and services to build an application platform that runs across multiple clouds.

Nginx, the company behind the third‑most‑used web server worldwide (behind Microsoft IIS and Apache), powers more than half of the top commercial sites, including those of McDonald’s and Starbucks. Its commercial offering, Nginx Plus, adds proprietary features for production environments and supports modern cloud‑native applications on AWS, Azure, and other clouds.

How to view the deal?

F5’s CEO François Locoh‑Donou said the acquisition complements both companies: Nginx brings trusted open‑source leadership and cloud‑native support for container‑based micro‑services, while F5 adds application security and services to bridge the gap between developers and operations in multi‑cloud environments.

According to the statement, the Nginx brand will remain, and its CEO Gus Robertson, founder Igor Sysoev and Maxim Konovalov will join F5’s senior management.

Domestic netizen reactions

Acquisitions of open‑source projects rarely succeed, but hope Nginx will continue to improve with strong funding.

Embrace open source – F5 bought a quality asset.

Why not a Chinese company? A few hundred million dollars isn’t expensive.

Will Nginx become more expensive and unaffordable?

Hope for better, cost‑effective services from the hardware‑software combo.

Rare to see an acquired company still exist five years later.

Jokes about Nginx trying to replace F5.

Smart move by F5; maybe we’ll buy more F5.

Foreign netizen reactions

F5 is now very powerful; what could replace it – another cloud product or self‑hosted Nginx?

Curious why Envoy wasn’t acquired; it’s open‑source and feature‑rich.

Nginx now performs tasks beyond traditional web‑server roles.

Concern about the future of Nginx’s built‑in load balancing, a critical infrastructure component.

Unless F5 changes the license, the commercial version may evolve but alternatives like HAProxy exist.

If Nginx disappears, switching to Apache would be difficult for many users.

Many companies rely on Nginx; its documentation and reliability are praised even for emergency night‑time fixes.

The $670 M valuation shows Nginx drives the network but isn’t a unicorn; venture‑capital perspectives differ.

Nginx keeps core features outside the open‑source core to sell Plus, which may be a catalyst for the model.

Reference links: https://www.f5.com/company/blog/letter-to-f5-employees-from-ceo-francois-locoh-donou-announcing-nginx-acquisition, https://www.businessinsider.com/nginix-f5-networks-670-million-acquisition-2019-3, https://www.geekwire.com/2019/f5-networks-acquiring-company-runs-big-chunk-internet-670m/, https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/11/f5-acquires-nginx-for-670m-to-move-into-open-source-multi-cloud-services/, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19362326