NGINX AND APACHE ARE THE BEST CHOICES CURRENTLY AVAILABLE
Between Apache and NGINX, which web server is most suitable for your website? A web server is computer software that delivers content over the internet and transfers data between the server system and the user's browser.
Choosing the right web server is crucial when setting up a website or starting a virtual server (VPS) project, as it can significantly affect performance and security.
1. Overview of NGINX and Apache
Apache
Commonly referred to as Apache or Apache HTTPD, Apache HTTP Web Server is an open-source and free web server software.It handles customer requests and serves web content via the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP).
It was the dominant web server in the early days of the world wide web and remains popular to this day.
Apache HTTP Server currently powers about 30% of websites globally, making it the second-largest web server on the market. Apache web server is compatible with many operating systems including Microsoft Windows, OpenVMS, and other Unix-like operating systems such as Linux and macOS. It supports a variety of communication protocols, including HTTP, HTTPS, WebSocket, and HTTP/2.
Apache HTTP Server is part of the LAMP stack, one of the first open-source software stacks for web development. This makes the web server compatible with various software, content management systems (CMS), programming languages, and web frameworks.
Apache is renowned for its modular system, providing high performance and flexibility. With Apache modules, users can easily add or remove functions to modify the server according to their needs.
NGINX
NGINX – pronounced as “Engine X” – is one of the most reliable web servers offering scalability and speed. Apache and NGINX have similar market shares, but NGINX is more popular.Both web servers are open-source and free to use.
Software engineer Igor Sysoev began developing NGINX in 2002 to address the C10K problem of the early world wide web. Back then, many web servers could only handle 10,000 connections simultaneously.
NGINX was released with an asynchronous, event-driven architecture, allowing it to handle multiple client requests simultaneously. This popular web server is known for its ability to handle high traffic loads and scale with minimal hardware. Additionally, it can quickly serve static files. It is part of the LEMP web stack, a popular alternative solution to Apache’s LAMP.
Besides being a web server, web developers also use NGINX as a load balancer to improve the availability and resource efficiency of server systems. Furthermore, it can function as a reverse proxy – an intermediary that evenly distributes content requests to ensure smooth traffic flow between servers and clients.
NGINX supports most Unix-like operating systems. Installing NGINX on Windows can lead to performance limitations, such as a lack of scalability and issues with UDP (User Datagram Protocol) authentication.
2. Basic Architecture: Connection Handling
Web server architecture is the logical layout or mechanism that determines how software handles requests, connections, and web traffic. It is one of the criteria to consider when choosing a web server. Let's compare NGINX and Apache in terms of basic architecture and how both software handle connections.
Apache
By default, Apache follows a process-driven architecture, creating a single thread to handle each connection request.
This disadvantage is that Apache has to create different processes when handling multiple client requests. This can lead to consuming many resources, causing server issues such as slow web page loading speeds and frequent downtime.
To address this downside, Apache offers various multi-processing modules (MPMs) to define how it accepts and handles HTTP requests. Users can choose any MPM that best suits their needs. There are three main MPMs:
- mpm_prefork – MPM prefork is not threaded, meaning each child process can only handle one request. Its performance immediately declines after requests exceed the number of processes, making scaling this MPM challenging.
- mpm_worker – each MPM worker process can create multiple threads to handle individual connections. This allows the system to serve multiple requests simultaneously. Since threads require fewer resources than processes, it is more scalable and efficient than MPM prefork.
- mpm_event – similar to MPM worker but also optimized to handle keep-alive connections. To do this, this MPM reserves dedicated threads to manage those connections and allocates active requests to other threads. This process helps MPM event perform well even when handling numerous keep-alive requests, resulting in low resource consumption.
Remember, you can only load one MPM on your server at a time. If your project requires stability and compatibility, use MPM prefork. However, consider using MPM worker or event for websites that need greater scalability and diversity.
NGINX
Many web servers use thread-based or simple process-based architectures. However, NGINX takes a different approach with its asynchronous, non-blocking, event-driven architecture. This allows the web server to handle multiple connections in a single process.
NGINX has one main process (master process) performing privileged operations such as binding to ports, reading and evaluating configuration files, and creating child processes.
Below are the three types of child processes in NGINX:
- Cache loader process – allows you to load the on-disk cache into the shared memory zone at startup.
- Cache manager process – monitors the size of the cache on disk and removes outdated cached data.
- Worker process – handles the main work of processing client requests and serving content. Each worker process has its own set of pre-allocated resources.
The event-driven architecture of NGINX can effectively distribute client requests among worker processes. As a result, the efficiency and resource consumption in Apache and NGINX are different.
Since NGINX can efficiently handle thousands of client requests with minimal resources, it is suitable for high-traffic websites, such as search engines, e-commerce sites, and cloud storage services.
Many popular content delivery networks (CDNs), like MaxCDN and Cloudflare, utilize NGINX to process their requests.
3. Compare the performance: Dynamic and Static Content
Apache
Apache is a customizable web server that allows users to install more than 50 official and third-party modules. It also supports loading dynamic modules to use memory more efficiently.
While the core features of the server are always available, users can load and unload modules to modify them. Apache modules can perform various tasks, such as handling dynamic content, setting environment variables, and rewriting URLs. Here are some of the most commonly used Apache modules:
- mod_headers: Allows you to control and customize response and request headers in your Apache web server.
- mod_expires: Enables users to specify expiration times for different types of web content.
- mod_authz_host: Allows access control and authorization based on server name, IP address, or request characteristics.
- mod_mime: Helps associate metadata with file extension names.
- mod_alias: Allows users to inform clients that the requested URL is incorrect.
Remember that Apache has pre-installed modules, and you can load them into the server's memory. Therefore, it's advisable to disable unused features to reduce resource consumption and maintain optimal server performance.
NGINX
Many web servers use a simple process or thread-based architecture. However, NGINX takes a different approach with an asynchronous, non-blocking, event-driven architecture. This allows the web server to handle multiple connections within a single process.
NGINX has a main process (master process) that performs privileged operations such as binding to ports, reading and parsing configuration files, and creating child processes.
Here are three types of NGINX child processes:
- Cache loader process: This process allows you to load disk cache into memory. It consumes minimal server resources as it runs only once after NGINX starts.
- Cache manager process: This process runs periodically to keep the disk cache memory size in sync with the configuration.
- Worker process: Worker processes handle multiple HTTP connections simultaneously, eliminating the need to create new processes or threads. Instead, each process runs independently and contains smaller units called worker connections responsible for handling request threads. In addition to connecting to upstream servers, worker processes can read and write stored content.
NGINX's event-driven architecture can efficiently distribute client requests among worker processes. As a result, the resource efficiency and resource consumption in NGINX differ from Apache.
Because NGINX can efficiently handle thousands of client requests with minimal resources, it is suitable for high-traffic websites, such as search engines, e-commerce websites, and cloud hosting services.
Many popular content delivery networks (CDNs), such as MaxCDN and Cloudflare, use NGINX to process requests efficiently.
4. Security Considerations
Apache
The Apache Software Foundation regularly sends notifications to users to ensure they are informed about the latest updates, which is essential for security.
To enhance security, Apache implements configuration settings to help mitigate Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks, including settings like TimeOut, RequestReadTimeout, and KeepAliveTimeout, which control how the server handles various aspects of client requests.
While Apache is built with security and stability in mind, the security of your server also depends on how you configure it. Implementing additional security measures such as a Web Application Firewall (WAF) is advisable.
NGINX
NGINX provides several security controls by default, such as rate limiting, which protects against DDoS attacks by limiting the rate of incoming requests from a particular client.
Rate limiting can also be used to protect upstream application servers from overload due to simultaneous user requests, improving server uptime and maintaining stable performance.
NGINX allows users to block DDoS attacks by either allowing or denying access based on client IP addresses. Access can also be limited based on passwords, subrequest outcomes, or bandwidth.
Additionally, NGINX supports the latest Transport Layer Security (TLS) versions for secure data transmission.
For enhanced security features, consider using NGINX Plus, which provides Single Sign-On (SSO) capabilities, allowing secure access to multiple websites and applications with a single authentication credential.
Another option is to combine NGINX and Apache to leverage the strengths of both web servers. Typically, Apache is used as a back-end server for its modules and native dynamic content processing capabilities, while NGINX serves as a front-end reverse proxy server and load balancer to distribute client requests.
Both Apache and NGINX offer security features, and the choice between them depends on your specific requirements and expertise. Implementing best practices for security, including regular updates and additional security measures, is essential to protect your web server.
