Setup GeoIP in nginx ,
Nginx and GeoLite2 not working
The official module is called ngx_http_geoip_module and according to the documentation, requires the MaxMind GeoIP library.
http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_geoip_module.html
Given the official documentation, yes, you can assume they are not compatible, and that you really need the required one instead.
