Ten Great Advantages of Nginx

Through this article I wish to share with you the 10 great advantages that I could find in Nginx. If anyone asked me 8 years back about Nginx installation, I would not have been in a position to say anything about Nginx since at that time I had been installing only Apache and was almost ignorant about how Nginx differs from the proxy mode and also about built in load balancing. Also, during that time I used to install Nginx on the servers of my customers without knowing much about it. However, today for all kinds of server – dynamic, streaming, or static– I install only Nginx and today I know more about the installations and configurations of Nginx than that of Apache.

What are the 10 advantages of Nginx?

1. Installations and configurations are simple and easy

On Ubuntu/Debian:

apt-get.install nginx;

and on Cent OS/RHEL/Fedora:

yum install nginx.

One has to edit no more than two files. The configuration file is very simple. For configuration the main file is On CentOS/etc/nginx/nginx conf. This file is used for general directives and options. The virtual hosts can be included in this file like:

include “/etc/nginx.conf.d/*.conf”;

One virtual host per file is created like:

/etc/nginx/conf.d/site1.com.conf

and

/etc/nginx/conf.d/site2.com.conf

There are no more steps for installation and configuration.

2. Fastest and the best for serving static files

While serving static files like pdf, zip, html, mp4, mpeg, avi-, jpg, gif, png, and others one can experience the awesome performance of Nginx. Those who want to boost the performance of the web server may add caching. In the example given below all the .gif, .jpg, .jpeg, png, .css, .ico and .js files are cached from the forthcoming 365 days.

~* .(jpg|jpeg|png|gif|ico|css|js)$ {
expires 365d; }

Because of this excellent service, most of the reputed CDN companies like NetDNA/MaxCDN, Pro CDN/Media Temple, Cachefly and Cloudflare use Nginx.

3. Dynamic content transformed into static content

When dynamic proxied content with the module of HttpProxyModule is cached using Nginx, the content is cached with maximum efficiency and the application code will not be altered.

4. When compared to Apache, 4 times more concurrent connections are handled.

The superiority of Nginx in handling concurrent connections, response time and usage of resource is obvious when it is compared with Apache or Lighttpd. Nginx is identified as the most efficient and light-weight web server today. Numerous benchmarks are there to establish the difference between Nginx and various other web servers. When compared to other web servers, Nginx supports more traffic concurrently and also it has the minimum memory usage.

Nginx vs Apache vs Lighttpd

5. Compatibility with commonly-used web apps

The traffic from any web app is handled by Nginx with no hassles whatsoever. Various apps such as WordPress, ruby, python, Joomla, drupal, vbulletin, phpbb, xenforo and numerous other popular apps are served by Nginx. When Nginx is used in replacement of .htaccess files, a few rewrite rules may have to be added. Nowadays, Nginx configuration guides are provided for most of the apps and as a result, the following two categories are available:

6. Load Balancing Support

One of the most outstanding features of Nginx is that it can configure load balancing for the fast scaling http servers. The Nginx load balancing enables distribution of traffic across different servers. This enables the users to scale their apps and simultaneously they get http redundancy. The server side set-up also will be fast and easy. Users can go through “How to set up Nginx Load Balancing” and “How to configure Nginx Load Balancing” for more information.

7. Nginx makes websites faster thereby enabling them to get higher ranking by Google

Almost all the major websites like Yahoo, You Tube, Pinterest, Instagram, WordPress.com and Tumblr use Nginx to manage traffic mainly because all of them want to achieve the maximum website speed. Most of the CDN companies also use Nginx for the same reason.

Few years back, speed of the website was not a matter of concern for SEO. Nowadays Google is very particular that the websites must be fast. The same applies to Internet.

Google has already made various changes in the search ranking algorithm and recently they made the speed of the website also a part of the algorithm. If a website is optimized inefficiently and it serves the content slowly, Google will rather ignore the website. The faster websites get maximum support from Google. The slow websites fail to receive good traffic from the popular search engines. Those who use Nginx are assured of good website speed and as a result they get better ranking by Google.

On Nginx, users can install Google Page Speed. Those who want to know more about this can refer “How to install Nginx PageSpeed module.”

8. No risk in switching over to Nginx

The users need not hesitate to start using Nginx. There is an abundance of tutorials as well as “How to” guides for installation, configuration and various other tasks pertaining to Nginx.

On the official website of Nginx (http://www.nginx.org) one can find out innumerable numbers of guides and tutorials. A few first step guides on Nginx are mentioned below:

9. Support from Nginx service professionals

Nginx service team is always ready to provide enterprise support to the users of Nginx. Those who have large websites can always call the technical service professionals from Nginx Inc for all kinds of technical support. Though it is a paid service, the technical support from those who created Nginx is indeed a great service.

10. The unique opportunity to try something new

Learning new things and experimenting with new products is always exciting. Those who make more mistakes learn more and learn better. One can enjoy the fun of learning new things. Those who are curious to learn more about web server apps may stop using Apache from today and start using Nginx, the most awesome web server in the world today. Those who have decided to switch over to Nginx have undoubtedly made a very great decision. They can reap benefits from the new web server.