Discover top open-source software, updated regularly with real-world adoption signals.
High‑performance web server, load balancer, and reverse proxy.
NGINX delivers fast HTTP serving, load balancing, reverse proxying, API gateway, and content caching with a modular, text‑based configuration and support for static or dynamic modules.
NGINX is a widely adopted web server that also functions as a load balancer, reverse proxy, API gateway, and content cache. Its architecture separates a master process from multiple worker processes, allowing efficient use of CPU cores and shared memory for features like rate limiting.
The software is distributed as stable and mainline binary packages for Linux, FreeBSD, and a proof‑of‑concept Windows build. Users can install official packages via native package managers or compile from source, optionally adding static or dynamic modules such as the popular njs JavaScript module. Configuration is performed through plain‑text directive files, giving fine‑grained control over SSL termination, caching policies, and load‑balancing algorithms.
Modules extend core functionality and can be built into the binary or loaded at runtime. Dynamic modules enable post‑install feature expansion without recompiling, while static modules provide tighter integration for performance‑critical deployments.
When teams consider NGINX, these hosted platforms usually appear on the same shortlist.
Managed load balancer service that automatically distributes incoming traffic across multiple targets to improve availability
Fully managed layer-4 load balancing service for distributing network traffic across multiple VMs or services in Azure
Edge load balancing with real-time health checks and failover.
Looking for a hosted option? These are the services engineering teams benchmark against before choosing open source.
Static website hosting with edge caching
Reduced latency and bandwidth usage through on‑disk and memory caching.
Load balancing for containerized microservices
Even traffic distribution and health‑check monitoring across service instances.
API gateway with rate limiting
Protection of backend APIs from abuse while maintaining high throughput.
SSL/TLS termination for secure traffic
Offloaded encryption handling, simplifying certificate management for upstream services.
Stable releases contain only critical fixes, while mainline releases include the latest features and bug fixes.
The Windows build is a proof‑of‑concept and is recommended only for development or testing.
Run `nginx -V` to list static modules and build options.
NGINX is released under a simplified 2‑clause BSD‑like license.
No, official dynamic modules can be installed from the same package repository as the core binaries.
Project at a glance
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