Introduction
NGINX, pronounced as ‘engine ex,’ is a widely used open-source web server software officially released in October of 2004. Back then, web servers had a big challenge known as the C10k problem. C10k is the challenge of managing ten thousand connections at the same time.
Though today web servers can manage a lot more than just ten thousand connections, until 2004, it was a problem that needed a solution. In 2002, Igor Sysoev, the creator of NGINX, started his project in an attempt to solve the C10k problem.
NGINX offers an event-driven and asynchronous architecture that is totally different from the traditional process-driven architecture, which makes it one of the most reliable servers for speed and scalability.
What is NGINX?
NGINX is an open-source web server software that serves as a reverse proxy, HTTP load balancer, and email proxy for IMAP, POP3, and SMTP. NGINX manages a high number of connections by creating a process pool that can be easily shared among multiple connections within the network.
It utilizes the resource better by allocating resources to the process whenever a request is made; this allocation system helps the resources easily handle extensive connections.
NGINX works very well as an HTTP load balancer that allows you to use multiple different load-sharing mechanisms. It also helps in the overall security and protection of your website by helping you set up a secure connection between your data centers and the outside network.
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How does NGINX Work?
In a traditional web server, when a request is made to open a webpage, the browser contacts the web server of that requested website then looks for the requested information and sends it back to the browser. This is a single-thread operation that a traditional web server carries out, as it creates a single thread for every request.
Whereas NGINX is more efficient because of its asynchronous, event-driven architecture. It means that similar requests, similar threads, are managed under one worker process, and each worker process contains smaller units called worker connections. Similar requests are considered similar events and then are handled by a single worker process; that is, all the concurrent requests are handled by a whole unit of worker connections, which then delivers the requests to a worker process. Then the worker process sends the requests to the master process, which provides the result of those requests.
One worker connection can take care of up to 1024 similar requests. Because of this efficiency, NGINX can process thousands of requests without any difficulties.
That’s the reason why high-traffic websites like Netflix, Adobe, WordPress, etc., and search engine giants like Google, DuckDuckGo, etc., use NGINX.
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Pros & Cons of NGINX
Pros:
Consistent written code base.
Modern Design and friendly configuration format.
Event-based and efficient in handling multiple connections without having overhead due to context switching.
Faster websites.
Uses less memory and resources.
Compatible with commonly used web applications like ruby, python, etc.
Helps in transforming dynamic content into static content.
Handles thousands of concurrent connections at the same time efficiently.
Helps in Google ranking.
Cons:
Small community support as compared to Apache.
Lesser modules and extensions as compared to Apache.
Less likely to be preferred due to small community support.
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When to use NGINX?
NGINX is better in performance and efficiency than any of its competitors. But when to use NGINX? Its answer is simple.
It is appropriate to use if you have an intermediate experience in web servers and websites. The sole reason is that NGINX has small community support, and if you are a beginner and you face any problem, it may take more time to get a solution than on Apache.
Apache has a bigger community that can help you resolve your problem almost instantly. But, if you have an intermediate level of experience and can download the required modules and extensions, you are good to go to opt for NGINX, as it is faster and more efficient than Apache.