A10 Thunder Kubernetes Connector vs NGINX Ingress Controller
A10 Thunder Kubernetes Connector
documentation.a10networks.com
NGINX Ingress Controller
docs.nginx.comSide by side
| Figure | A10 Thunder Kubernetes Connector | NGINX Ingress Controller |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 0 | 2 |
| Spec score · Kubernetes Ingress Controllers | 7.7 (#11) | 7.1 (#21) |
| Integrations | A10 says the solution supports automation tools such as Terraform and Ansible for integration into CI/CD pipelines. | Documented integrations include F5 WAF for NGINX, F5 DoS for NGINX, F5 BIG-IP, cert-manager, ExternalDNS, Prometheus, Istio, Linkerd, and Open Service Mesh. |
| Purpose | Thunder Kubernetes Connector (TKC) helps provide external access to applications running in a Kubernetes cluster with Thunder ADC. | NGINX Ingress Controller is a Kubernetes Ingress Controller that load balances WebSocket, gRPC, TCP, and UDP applications. |
| Support | A10 provides product technical support and says its Technical Assistance Center uses a follow-the-sun support model to address issues at any time of day. | Technical support applies to provider-supported Kubernetes platforms that pass Kubernetes conformance tests; F5 customer support covers the latest controller version and versions released within two years of the current release. |
Plans
NGINX Ingress Controller
- NGINX Ingress Controller with NGINX Open SourceFree
- NGINX Plus Ingress ControllerPriced on request
In their own words
A10 Thunder Kubernetes Connector
A10 Thunder Kubernetes Connector (TKC) monitors Kubernetes application lifecycles and updates an external Thunder ADC load balancer to route traffic. Running inside a Kubernetes cluster, it identifies a web service’s NodePort and dynamically configures Thunder ADC to load-balance traffic to Kubernetes nodes, avoiding manual network-resource provisioning. A10 describes TKC for multi-cloud and hybrid-cloud deployments, where Thunder ADC can apply consistent security and business policies across public and private clouds. Centralized traffic routing provides operations teams with application traffic and analytics visibility for troubleshooting. TKC supports Terraform and Ansible for CI/CD integration and is listed as an automated Kubernetes service-discovery option. Related Thunder ADC capabilities include Layer 4–7 load balancing, customizable health checks, aFleX scripting, TLS/SSL offloading, rate limiting and a web application firewall. TKC v2.4.2 is documented for Linux, self-hosted deployments using the ingress API model.
NGINX Ingress Controller
NGINX Ingress Controller is a self-hosted Kubernetes Ingress Controller for load balancing WebSocket, gRPC, TCP, and UDP applications. It provides content-based routing and TLS/SSL termination, with further NGINX settings exposed through annotations and ConfigMaps. Manifest installation can use Deployment, DaemonSet, or StatefulSet modes. Policy resources cover access control, rate limiting, API keys, authentication, mutual TLS, WAF, CORS, and HSTS, although some require NGINX Plus. The controller can expose NGINX and controller metrics in Prometheus format, including a ServiceMonitor with Prometheus Operator. Documented integrations include cert-manager, ExternalDNS, Prometheus, Istio, Linkerd, Open Service Mesh, and F5 products. The free NGINX Open Source plan costs nothing and requires a Kubernetes cluster. NGINX Plus requires a subscription and registry credentials, and adds metrics, balancing methods, persistence, health checks, and JWT validation.