What is Nginx?

In a nutshell

Nginx is a web server and reverse proxy. It can efficiently serve static content like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to the client. As a reverse proxy, and handle load balancing.

Features

• Web server: It can efficiently serve static content like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to the client.
• Reverse proxy: It can forward some requests to other servers and applications (e.g., forward requests to a PHP or Ruby application)
• Load balancing: It can distribute incoming network traffic across multiple servers or applications to prevent a single server from becoming overloaded.
• Caching: It can store frequently accessed files in memory to reduce load on servers and to speed up content delivery.
• Security: It can support basic HTTP authentication, IP-based restriction, and other features.