What is Nginx? What are its main features?

What is Nginx? What are its main features?

Nginx is a high-performance HTTP and reverse proxy server, as well as an IMAP/POP3 proxy server. It was developed by Igor Sysoev and initially released in 2004, designed to solve the C10k problem - the challenge of handling a large number of concurrent client connections.

Main Features of Nginx:

1. High Performance: Uses an event-driven architecture capable of handling tens of thousands of concurrent connections with low memory usage
2. Strong Stability: Performs reliably under high concurrency and can run for extended periods without crashing
3. Reverse Proxy: Can act as a reverse proxy server, forwarding requests to backend servers
4. Load Balancing: Supports multiple load balancing algorithms such as round-robin, least connections, IP hash, etc.
5. Static File Serving: Efficiently serves static files including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images, etc.
6. Caching: Supports caching for FastCGI, uWSGI, SCGI, memcached, and more
7. SSL/TLS Support: Supports HTTPS protocol and can be configured with SSL certificates
8. Modular Design: Extensible functionality through modules, including third-party modules
9. Hot Deployment: Supports reloading configuration without interrupting service
10. Cross-Platform: Supports multiple operating systems including Linux, Windows, macOS, etc.

Differences from Apache:

• Nginx uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model, while Apache uses a process/thread model
• Nginx performs better under high concurrency with lower resource consumption
• Apache has richer modules and stronger dynamic processing capabilities
• Nginx configuration is relatively simpler with a gentler learning curve

Use Cases:

• High-concurrency web servers
• Reverse proxy servers
• Load balancers
• Static resource servers
• API gateways
• WebSocket proxies