nginx - what is

Updated: Sun, 01 Feb 2015 by Rad

nginx (pronounced engine-x)

Open source reverse proxy server for HTTP, HTTPS, SMTP, POP3, and IMAP protocols, as well as a load balancer, HTTP cache, and a web server (origin server).

Started with a strong focus on high concurrency, high performance and low memory usage. It is licensed under the 2-clause BSD-like license and it runs on almost every platform and Operating System. Its development started in 2002 by Igor Sysoev, later in 2011 a company was fomed Nginx, Inc in San Francisco.

Market share in Jan 2015 stood at about 24%. It is very popular with high traffic web sites. Some popular sites using nginx:

• yahoo.co.jp
• instagram.com
• reddit.com
• wordpress.com

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