Aspect or Feature	kubernetes/ingress-nginx	nginxinc/kubernetes-ingress with NGINX	nginxinc/kubernetes-ingress with NGINX Plus
Fundamental
Authors	Kubernetes community	NGINX Inc and community	NGINX Inc and community
NGINX version	Custom NGINX build that includes several third-party modules	NGINX official mainline build	NGINX Plus
Commercial support	N/A	N/A	Included
Implemented in	Go/Lua (while Nginx is written in C)	Go/Python	Go/Python
Load balancing configuration via the Ingress resource
Merging Ingress rules with the same host	Supported	Supported via Mergeable Ingresses	Supported via Mergeable Ingresses
HTTP load balancing extensions - Annotations	See the supported annotations	See the supported annotations	See the supported annotations
HTTP load balancing extensions -- ConfigMap	See the supported ConfigMap keys	See the supported ConfigMap keys	See the supported ConfigMap keys
TCP/UDP	Supported via a ConfigMap	Supported via custom resources	Supported via custom resources
Websocket	Supported	Supported via an annotation	Supported via an annotation
TCP SSL Passthrough	Supported via a ConfigMap	Supported via custom resources	Supported via custom resources
JWT validation	Not supported	Not supported	Supported
Session persistence	Supported via a third-party module	Not supported	Supported
Canary testing (by header, cookie, weight)	Supported via annotations	Supported via custom resources	Supported via custom resources
Configuration templates	See the template	See the templates	See the templates
Load balancing configuration via Custom Resources
HTTP load balancing	Not supported	See VirtualServer and VirtualServerRoute resources	See VirtualServer and VirtualServerRoute resources
TCP/UDP load balancing	Not supported	See TransportServer resource	See TransportServer resource
TCP SSL Passthrough load balancing	Not supported	See TransportServer resource	See TransportServer resource
Deployment
Command-line arguments	See the arguments	See the arguments	See the arguments
TLS certificate and key for the default server	Required as a command-line argument/ auto-generated	Required as a command-line argument	Required as a command-line argument
Helm chart	Supported	Supported	Supported
Operator	Not supported	Supported	Supported
Operational
Reporting the IP address(es) of the Ingress controller into Ingress resources	Supported	Supported	Supported
Extended Status	Supported via a third-party module	Not supported	Supported
Prometheus Integration	Supported	Supported	Supported
Dynamic reconfiguration of endpoints (no configuration reloading)	Supported with a third-party Lua module	Not supported	Supported