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NGINX

NGINX

Overview

What is NGINX?

NGINX, a business unit of F5 Networks, powers over 65% of the world's busiest websites and web applications. NGINX started out as an open source web server and reverse proxy, built to be faster and more efficient than Apache. Over…

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Recent Reviews

NGINX Review

9 out of 10
September 15, 2023
Incentivized
We use it as the ATTP server and it is one of the very popular ATTP servers on the market. It's free and it has really good speed compared …
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NGINX Review

9 out of 10
September 15, 2023
Incentivized
I use it for mostly host websites or anything that needs to be host. So we have our on-prem server where we host ourselves.
Continue reading

NGINX Review

9 out of 10
September 15, 2023
Incentivized
So we use it in our app development. We use NGINX servers for deploying our apps. We don't have any challenges so far. We are pretty much …
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NGINX to the rescue!

8 out of 10
November 29, 2022
Incentivized
NGINX routes external traffic from external clients to our infrastructure application endpoints. It solves scalability and availability …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 6 features
  • Installation (12)
    9.2
    92%
  • Application server performance (12)
    9.1
    91%
  • Administration and management (12)
    8.8
    88%
  • Security management (12)
    8.3
    83%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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What is NGINX?

NGINX, a business unit of F5 Networks, powers over 65% of the world's busiest websites and web applications. NGINX started out as an open source web server and reverse proxy, built to be faster and more efficient than Apache. Over the years, NGINX has built a suite of infrastructure software…

Entry-level set up fee?

  • Setup fee optional
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.nginx.com/products/pricing

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting / Integration Services

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Product Demos

CVE-2016-1247 Nginx (Debian-based) Vulnerability - Root Priv. Escalation PoC Exploit Demo

YouTube

Nginx Web Server configuration with Examples

YouTube

Load Balancing with NGINX

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Access your internal websites! Nginx Reverse Proxy in Home Assistant.

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How to Serve Static Content

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Using NGINX Open Source for Video Streaming and Storage

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Features

Application Servers

An Application Server provides services and infrastructure for developing, deploying, and running applications

8.6
Avg 8.1
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Product Details

What is NGINX?

NGINX, a business unit of F5 Networks, powers over 65% of the world's busiest websites and web applications. NGINX started out as an open source web server and reverse proxy, built to be faster and more efficient than Apache. Over the years, NGINX has built a suite of infrastructure software products o tackle some of the biggest challenges in managing high-transaction applications.

NGINX offers a suite of products to form the core of what organizations need to create applications with performance, reliability, security, and scale. This includes NGINX Plus for load balancing, reverse proxy, and application delivery controller features, NGINX App Protect for high performance web application firewall security, and NGINX Unit to run the application code, all monitored and managed by the NGINX Controller.
  • NGINX Plus: An all‑in‑one load balancer, web server, and content cache.
  • NGINX Controller: Centralized monitoring and management for NGINX Plus.
  • NGINX App Protect: Web application firewall, powered by F5
  • NGINX Unit: Lightweight application server, with support for multiple languages and a dynamic REST API‑driven configuration
  • NGINX Ingress Controller: Traffic management solution for cloud‑native apps in Kubernetes and containerized environments.
  • NGINX Service Mesh: Lightweight, Turnkey, Developer-Friendly Service Mesh Using NGINX Plus as an Enterprise Sidecar

NGINX Features

Application Servers Features

  • Supported: IDE support
  • Supported: Security management
  • Supported: Administration and management
  • Supported: Application server performance
  • Supported: Installation
  • Supported: Open-source standards compliance

Additional Features

  • Supported: NGINX: Fast, light web server and reverse proxy
  • Supported: NGINX Plus: All‑in‑one Load Balancer, Web Server, and Content Cache
  • Supported: NGINX Plus: Security controls, High Availability, Dynamic Modules
  • Supported: NGINX App Protect: Layer 7 Attack Protection
  • Supported: NGINX Controller: Centralized Traffic Management and Monitoring
  • Supported: NGINX Controller: Role-based Access Controls
  • Supported: NGINX Unit: Multi-language Application Server

NGINX Screenshots

Screenshot of Overview of the NGINX Application PlatformScreenshot of NGINX Controller - MonitoringScreenshot of NGINX Controller - Configuration

NGINX Competitors

NGINX Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

Microsoft IIS and HAProxy are common alternatives for NGINX.

Reviewers rate Installation highest, with a score of 9.2.

The most common users of NGINX are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).

NGINX Customer Size Distribution

Consumers0%
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)0%
Mid-Size Companies (51-500 employees)50%
Enterprises (more than 500 employees)50%
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(118)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 39)
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September 15, 2023

NGINX Review

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it as the ATTP server and it is one of the very popular ATTP servers on the market. It's free and it has really good speed compared with the all-party ATTP server.
  • The good thing about this product compared with other ATTP server the performance speed.
  • No, I think at least compared with other products, this ATTP server is really good.
It's pretty much good for all the web applications.
September 15, 2023

NGINX Review

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use it for mostly host websites or anything that needs to be host. So we have our on-prem server where we host ourselves.
  • Apache and engines are both. So I do like to use engines better. I'm using it from the college, so I prefer to use that one as it is open source.
  • As it is open-source, I would like a box there, to fix those issues, and report to us so that we can install the updated version. So apart from that, I haven't faced anything but looks good.
It's well suited as I already mentioned. So basically one of the best hosting tools I use, so I would like to use that one feature also.
September 15, 2023

NGINX Review

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
So we use it in our app development. We use NGINX servers for deploying our apps. We don't have any challenges so far. We are pretty much happy with whatever NGINX provides.
  • I'm not the direct user.
  • I don't really see any disadvantages to using this product. It has all the things that we need, so we never had any complaints about using NGINX.
I'm not that familiar with those scenarios.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use nginx as a reverse proxy for web traffic for security reasons. We have also used it as an http cache.
  • Good reverse proxy
  • Load balancer
  • Http cache
  • Provide recommendations for improving performance
  • Provide flags on misconfigurations
Nginx does well as a reverse proxy and not as well as a load balancer compared to other load balancer
April 27, 2023

NGINX simple review

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We used it to allow our internal applications to be accessed by the Internet, this allows the application to be securely accessed through public networks since we secure the https access through public certificated issued by our organization. It simplifies the management of apps published to the Internet.
  • Secure application access.
  • Easy to implement.
  • OS flexibility.
  • Configuration management
  • Automatic updates
Well served as a proxy reverse, we implemented in our environment to secure access by not exposing the app server directly to the Internet. As the product is really oriented, I don't see where it could be less oriented for. I think is well suited for load balancing the application access through proxy reverse, but this feature I haven't tested yet.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use NGINX as a reverse proxy to protect internal applications and to implement web APIs, which allows us to securely connect end users, apps and other systems with our back end systems. The NGINX servers are easily deployed in our DMZ, they run reliably and use very little resources. I definitely recommend NGINX.
  • reverse proxy
  • public and secure REST API
  • The setup under Windows server could use a GUI
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Most of our applications are container based and load balanced. Having multiple servers in the backend is challenging and using an external load balancer makes you lose control of the mechanics. That is where NGINX comes into picture. We create config files on our EC2 instances and control how the load balancer functions via NGINX
  • Load balancer
  • Load sharing
  • Web server
  • Reverse Proxy
  • Community support is limited
Well suited for web server hosting, load balancing, using reverse proxy to point to an alias. I don't think we can leverage it fully on windows
November 29, 2022

NGNIX saves the day

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I leverage the NGINX proxy to forward external client traffic thru our AWS infrastructure.
  • Proxy the traffic
  • Scales quickly
  • Light weight
  • UI to manage NAF rules
I use NGINX for routing application traffic to the appropriate endpoint.
November 29, 2022

NGINX to the rescue!

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
NGINX routes external traffic from external clients to our infrastructure application endpoints. It solves scalability and availability issues and allows us to get off legacy solutions.
  • Routes ingress web traffic
  • Scales effectively
  • Leverages native AWS services
  • Rule Management
  • Ease of implementation
  • Build automation
NGINX is well suited for external traffic routing.
Rudolph Pereira | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use NGINX to host web servers. It is great for serving static files and if we need a proxy server to host microservices running on different ports.
  • Host Web Sites
  • Use it as a proxy server
  • COnfiguring several virtual hosts.
  • Improve on the official docs to have several example scenarios.
  • Improve on the error messaging.
  • Make it easier to host several PHP versions on the same machine.
NGINX is easy to install and use. The configuration is simpler. It is fast and especially great for static files. SSL configuration is also easier.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We currently use NGINX for a high-powered highly configurable web server. The ability to protect and reduce the attack surface area of our primary webservers was our primary need. NGINX was chosen to meet internal demands for a highly flexible webserver that can have multiple nodes and redirect/proxy traffic to protected servers.
  • Allows for multiple domain names.
  • Can be created as a proxy that forwards traffic to back-end servers.
  • Allows for SSL offloading and protection.
  • Allows for Load balancing between multiple back-end servers.
  • Currently, there isn't a GUI interface which is both a good thing (for reduced footprint) and a perceived bad thing if console familiar users are not available.
The best scenario for NGINX is when you need to create a front-end proxy that can handle several different domain names, certificates, and configurations. Each of these configurations can be built out in a single server pointing to multiple back-end servers and services. NGINX may be less suited if you have a very simple one server/one domain setup that doesn't need a lot of customization and configuration.
Anatoly Geyfman | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use NGINX as our web-facing server, behind which we have a collection of services serving various parts of our application. NGINX helps us map a single API over a variety of services, and make our API endpoints consistent across the various services. Nginx also helps with uptime, by helping us switch between various instances of the services in near real-time.
  • Extremely high-performing -- NGINX is never a bottleneck.
  • Easy to configure -- the configuration language is easy to learn, and allows very flexible scenarios.
  • Lightweight -- it's a very small service, which is never a memory or CPU hog.
  • Management tools -- Nginx has good errors, but it would be nice if it plugged into our cloud hosting infrastructure a little easier.
  • Configuration error detection -- for more complex configurations, sometimes Nginx isn't overly helpful when telling us what's wrong.
Ngnix is best suited as a public-facing proxy for everything that you might want to host. From WordPress to APIs, Ngnix does an extremely great job passing requests to those services, logging these requests in flexible ways, throttling requests when necessary, and even simplifying the downstream services by taking on some of the path extraction responsibilities (like extracting variables from paths and passing them in as headers).

It's not an application server, although they're working on it.
Josh Stapp | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Many [NGINX] servers are used across the organization to load balance and serve content before hitting our nodejs express rest api backends or our node react express frontends. It helps maintain uptime when we encounter strange deployment errors that can take out one of our servers. In my experience is has provided amazing throughput with very little configuration.
  • Performance
  • Reliability
  • Low configuration
  • Rarely used in development
  • Difficult to tell if it changed values from a server behind it
[NGINX] is very well suited for high performance. I have seen it used on servers with 1k current connections with no issues. Despite seeing it used in many environments I've never seen software developers use it over apache, express, IIS in local dev environments so it may be more difficult to setup. I've also seen it used to load balance again without issues.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We currently use Nginx for our ingress layer into our Kubernetes cluster as well as for setting up simple reverse proxies.
  • Reverse proxy
  • Simple web server
  • Kubernetes ingress
  • Complex confusing configuration.
  • Advanced features are paywalled.
  • No great way to generate configurations with input.
NGINX is my go-to solution for anything regarding HTTP traffic. Whether that's a simple web server or an advanced implementation of ingress-Nginx for Kubernetes.
Sandesh Singh | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
NGINX is basically used as a server for web applications as implemented in our organization, NGINX helps us solve many problems like accelerated reverse proxying with caching and the best for static content loading. The other cool security feature that we take the most advantage of is that NGINX Limiting the number of simultaneous connections or requests coming from one address which protects our app from attacks against our infrastructure.
  • Limiting the number of simultaneous connections or requests coming from one address
  • Prompt Static content delivery
  • code caching and reverse proxy server
  • NJS Scripting Language.
  • Much more areas of application
  • A bit hard to implement.
The only problems a user can expect is while implementation and it's hard sometimes and things don't go as expected every time, but once implemented the performance and scalability it provides is beyond one's imagination. It makes everything so easy after implementation and we use it for out git repositories branch wise deployment using docker and GitLab.
John Reeve | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We have used NGINX in several different ways. We've used it as a load balancer, a proxy server, and a web server. Its ability to do one or all three of these jobs is what makes it so useful.
  • Load balancing.
  • Proxy server.
  • Config files aren't as straightforward as Apache.
NGINX is extremely fast when used as a web server. We used it for many years to serve up static content such as images, css, html, and javascript. The proxy features are also great for routing traffic through it when needed.
Alan Matson, CCNA:S, MCP | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use NGINX to run all of our web servers that are customer public-facing. We replaced using APACHE with NGINX due to the ease of use and highly customizable option.s
  • Great customization
  • Very well documented
  • Better built in documentation
NGINX is well suited for a forward-facing web server. While as a reverse proxy, I had better results with APACHE, I try and use NGINX for anything that I need to run a reliable and secure web server on.
January 28, 2020

NGINX Review

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use NGINX for two main purposes. The first and foremost is to serve as a reverse proxy to rails applications running on their own servers. This includes making use of gzipping and SSL/TLS encryption. Additionally, it is used to serve compiled react applications as static sites, with the other instance still serving as a reverse proxy to these.
  • SSL/TLS encryption - Incredibly simple to configure and use.
  • Gzipping - Quickly and easily compress responses to save network cycles.
  • Lack of logging tools - Simply writes logs to files that you have to manually navigate.
  • No GUI - All configuration from a console. This could be a pro or a con to some.
If you want to serve a static website, implement a reverse proxy server to in-house applications running on their own servers, enable SSL/TLS encryption for your sites, load balance between application instances, or simply cut down the size of your server's responses by gzipping them, then Nginx is for you. If you feel that you need a GUI to do any of these things, then potentially look elsewhere.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Nginx is widely used in the whole organization for different applications as a front end hitting web server. It's used generally to benefit the caching mechanism and load the balance of the clustered applications and also used widely to maintain an active environment in case of any node failure or application server failure.
  • Nginx provides a very good caching mechanism as compared to other web servers. It helps to increase the performance of application when users hit the same address again and again in short period of time. This caching mechanism has many options available and it helps to configure it any way.
  • Nginx is a light weight web server which forwards the requests from the user to application server. If we host multiple sites on same Nginx server, the load of the server doesn't increase.
  • Nginx rewrite rules bring more flexibility to configure permanent or temporary redirections for some of the URLs
  • Nginx works best when we use it as front end proxy server for any application
  • Nginx is best in managing the Production and DR environments in an active mode. It is applicable for some of the applications when local file systems are shared across servers.
  • Load balancing is the thing where Nginx needs more improvement when I compare it with HAProxy. HAProxy provides more flexibility than Nginx for load balancing for clustered applications.
  • Nginx monitoring is good but not best. Teams have to improve the monitoring of Nginx where we can easily track the ddos attacks or multiple connections from one IP or multiple requests coming from one IP then they need to block it etc. i.e. Nginx must provide more flexibility in configuring more scenarios, which we do manually to improve the application performance.
  • Nginx needs improvement in the logging mechanism. Nginx must provide their own commands to get the desired output from the logs. So that instead of using unix commands and grep particular things, if Nginx provides better commands which can easily trace the logs in desired way, it will bring more flexibility to the system administrator.
Nginx is best to use as front end proxy for any application server. Nginx's cache mechanism is one of the best as compared to other web servers. Nginx is really a light weight webserver and it provides more flexibility in case of load balancing in clustered application. Configuration of Nginx is very easy as compared to other web servers. Nginx uses fewer resources of hosted server.
Tom Erdman | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Nginx for all of our web services, whether it be straight up websites or applications. It’s open source (free), but so easy to implement while being incredibly powerful.
  • Nginx can be set up to serve up a web site in minutes.
  • Nginx is easily customizable. You can easily serve over HTTPS, have custom directories, or proxy upstream servers.
  • Nginx has great support and documentation, even for the free version.
  • I had some initial problems proxying PHP.
  • It’s easy to over complicate your setup.
  • Like many applications, some of the error codes can be pretty ambiguous.
Nginx is perfectly suited for anyone with Linux in their environment and who needs a powerful web or app server. It might not work as well for an all Windows shop.
Leonel Quinteros | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Nginx is present at different levels across my projects. Sometimes is just a Web Server, others a Load Balancer or an API proxy with SSL/TLS management, it's just great that's so lightweight that you can deploy as many instances as you want, for different purposes and create a services mesh inside your organization's network.
  • Low memory footprint, high performance, low maintenance.
  • Modular, configurable, flexible. You can create totally different nodes from the same Nginx version. I.e. you can use 1 instance to run a Web Server and another to run a gRPC rate limiter.
  • Nginx Plus suite is awesome! and has really nice features for high end users as well. It complements really well with the core, open source products.
  • Great ecosystem for API and Microservices management and governance
  • Excellent Web Server, of course!
  • Some parts or modules form Nginx Plus suite would be really useful in the Open Source world. But it's just about paying the fee or implement it yourself though.
  • No .htaccess support (https://www.nginx.com/resources/wiki/start/topics/examples/likeapache-htaccess/)
  • Low diversity and extension of modules.
When deploying API services, we need to take care of many aspects of the network where they work. Infrastructure is also a factor when limited, so you also need to limit and manage it according to its use. Nginx is great to construct these network nodes (HTTP, API Proxy) that connects everything and can add extra capabilities like security (ModSecurity, SSL/TLS) and availability (Load Balancer, Rate Limit).

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Nginx is the main competitor to Apache. It provides stable service. I have been using Nginx for the last four years and it has never gone down even once, which is critical for a web server. I also like the flexibility and compatibility Nginx has with other components in web development. I switched from LAMP to LEMP, which works great as an environment for WordPress and other PHP software. Overall, it is a great choice for a web server.
  • Stability. It runs quietly and never goes down.
  • Flexibility. It can run in all the Linux distro.
  • Compatibility. It works with PHP and MYSQL well.
  • It's free.
  • Community. Compare to Apache, Nginx has much smaller community support. You do not have lots of resources you can use when you encounter a problem accept digging into it and trying to figure it out yourself.
  • Lacks Large Scale Experience. Nginx is not the first choice for enterprise level architecture. Most large companies will use Apache instead of Nginx when it comes to large scale architecture. Here is where Nginx's lightweight advantage becomes their con.
  • Lack of multiple modules compatibility. Because Nginx is a lightweight focused server, it cannot be used with some other modules. That also makes Nginx favorable for people with small websites.
If you want to start learning web application architecture, Nginx is a great start. It is one of the easiest web servers to deploy and use. The configuration file is easy to use and understand. You will not feel overwhelmed learning it. If your company needs a lightweight web server or even simply just a static host, you can choose Nginx. It is super reliable and easy to use. It is also pretty much carefree. Just deploy it and you are done. When thinking about choosing servers, the best start point is the needs of your company. Nginx fits in the same category as other flexible, consistent, lightweight servers.
Gregory Pecqueur | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Nginx as a load balancer and as a reverse proxy for all of our web services. We use it to serve NodeJs applications, REST APIs and Angular front.
  • Great community
  • A lot of documentation available
  • High-performing
  • Easy to configure
  • Cache static assets
  • Multi-threaded support
  • A user-friendly UI console to test some configurations in a test server
Nginx is a very good web server and proxy. To serve NodeJs applications, Nginx + pm2 is very efficient. Coupled with Passenger, it allows MEAN Stacks applications to be deployed very easily.
Rahul Dhangar | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Nginx is an excellent choice for any size company, be it a startup or mid to large scale. iI delivers a well-supported server architecture without much fuss involved. I loved the customer support I received whenever I sought help for several different client projects. Nginx is a great choice for use with AWS EC2 instances as well as I've personally used and configured it without any bottleneck. So I can say that it is a good choice for AWS and similar cloud hosting solutions.
  • Reliable load balancing capabilities
  • Caching of static assets is great
  • SSL handling is good
  • Relatively simple configurable proxy solution
  • Open source hence accessibility is easy to larger audience
  • Nginx plus is a bit on higher end on pricing for small organisations
  • Automatic Nginx configuration & services update for open source version is something which would be a welcoming step. Currently everything needs to be done manually
  • Web GUI console could be a slight better and some configurations from there itself would be highly appreciated
It is well suited for creating your custom CDN without much payload on the server and a proxy solution is also very effective using Nginx. Great for websites having high traffic demands but could be a bit heavy for smaller projects where traffic is low. Overall effectiveness of the Nginx solution is great when compared to competitive solutions provided by Apache Server.
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