Description
NGINX is an open-source web server software known for its high performance and low resource usage. It excels in serving static content and is widely used as a load balancer and as a reverse proxy. NGINX is compatible with various operating systems and transcends the traditional role of a mere web server.
NGINX operates on a scalable and asynchronous event-driven architecture. It employs a master process and multiple worker processes, where the master process manages the worker processes that handle the actual processing of requests
Supported OSs
- Linux
- Mac OS
- Windows
Used as
- Web Server
- Load Balancer
- Reverse Proxy
Main Features
- Reverse proxy with caching
- IPv6
- Load balancing
- FastCGI support with caching
- WebSockets
- Handling of static files, index files, and auto-indexing
- TLS/SSL with Server Name Indication (SNI)
History
NGINX was originally created by Igor Sysoev in 2002 to solve the C10k problem, which is a problem regarding the performance issue of handling 10,000 concurrent connections. The first public release was in October 2004.
In 2011, a company of the same name was founded to provide support and NGINX Plus paid software. In March 2019, the company was acquired by F5, Inc. for $670 million.