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Actix vs nginx: What are the differences?

## Key Differences between Actix and nginx

Actix and nginx are both widely used technologies in the field of web servers. While they both serve the purpose of handling client requests and serving responses, there are several key differences between the two.

1. **Architecture**: Actix is a high-powered, actor-based framework for building web applications in Rust, while nginx is a lightweight, open-source web server. Actix uses an event-driven, non-blocking architecture, allowing for high concurrency and scalability. Nginx, on the other hand, uses a multi-process, multi-threaded architecture.

2. **Language**: Actix is built specifically for the Rust programming language, allowing developers to take advantage of Rust’s memory safety and performance benefits. Nginx, on the other hand, is written in C and can be extended using various scripting languages like Lua.

3. **Flexibility**: Actix provides developers with a flexible and modular framework for building web applications, allowing for easy customization and extensibility. Nginx, on the other hand, is primarily designed as a web server and reverse proxy, providing a more focused set of features.

4. **Configuration**: Actix applications are typically configured using code, allowing for dynamic configuration and easy deployment. Nginx, on the other hand, uses a configuration file that needs to be manually edited, requiring a server restart for changes to take effect.

5. **Performance**: Actix is known for its exceptional performance and low resource usage, making it a great choice for high-performance applications. Nginx also performs well and is often used as a load balancer or reverse proxy, but Actix's event-driven architecture gives it an edge in certain scenarios.

6. **Community and Ecosystem**: Actix is a relatively newer technology and has a smaller community compared to nginx. Nginx, being a mature and widely adopted web server, has a large and active community, along with extensive documentation and third-party extensions.

In summary, Actix and nginx differ in their architecture, language, flexibility, configuration, performance, and community. Actix provides a highly performant and flexible framework for building web applications in Rust, while nginx is a lightweight web server and reverse proxy with a large community and extensive ecosystem.
Advice on Actix and NGINX

I am diving into web development, both front and back end. I feel comfortable with administration, scripting and moderate coding in bash, Python and C++, but I am also a Windows fan (i love inner conflict). What are the votes on web servers? IIS is expensive and restrictive (has Windows adoption of open source changed this?) Apache has the history but seems to be at the root of most of my Infosec issues, and I know nothing about nginx (is it too new to rely on?). And no, I don't know what I want to do on the web explicitly, but hosting and data storage (both cloud and tape) are possibilities. Ready, aim fire!

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Replies (1)
Simon Aronsson
Developer Advocate at k6 / Load Impact · | 4 upvotes · 619.7K views
Recommends
on
NGINXNGINX

I would pick nginx over both IIS and Apace HTTP Server any day. Combine it with docker, and as you grow maybe even traefik, and you'll have a really flexible solution for serving http content where you can take sites and projects up and down without effort, easily move it between systems and dont have to handle any dependencies on your actual local machine.

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Needs advice
on
Apache HTTP ServerApache HTTP Server
and
NGINXNGINX

From a StackShare Community member: "We are a LAMP shop currently focused on improving web performance for our customers. We have made many front-end optimizations and now we are considering replacing Apache with nginx. I was wondering if others saw a noticeable performance gain or any other benefits by switching."

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Replies (3)
Recommends
on
NGINXNGINX

I use nginx because it is very light weight. Where Apache tries to include everything in the web server, nginx opts to have external programs/facilities take care of that so the web server can focus on efficiently serving web pages. While this can seem inefficient, it limits the number of new bugs found in the web server, which is the element that faces the client most directly.

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Leandro Barral
Recommends
on
NGINXNGINX

I use nginx because its more flexible and easy to configure

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Christian Cwienk
Software Developer at SAP · | 1 upvotes · 589.3K views
Recommends
on
Apache HTTP ServerApache HTTP Server

I use Apache HTTP Server because it's intuitive, comprehensive, well-documented, and just works

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Pros of Actix
Pros of NGINX
  • 6
    Really really really fast
  • 3
    Very safe
  • 3
    Rust
  • 2
    Open source
  • 1.4K
    High-performance http server
  • 893
    Performance
  • 730
    Easy to configure
  • 607
    Open source
  • 530
    Load balancer
  • 288
    Free
  • 288
    Scalability
  • 225
    Web server
  • 175
    Simplicity
  • 136
    Easy setup
  • 30
    Content caching
  • 21
    Web Accelerator
  • 15
    Capability
  • 14
    Fast
  • 12
    High-latency
  • 12
    Predictability
  • 8
    Reverse Proxy
  • 7
    The best of them
  • 7
    Supports http/2
  • 5
    Great Community
  • 5
    Lots of Modules
  • 5
    Enterprise version
  • 4
    High perfomance proxy server
  • 3
    Reversy Proxy
  • 3
    Streaming media delivery
  • 3
    Streaming media
  • 3
    Embedded Lua scripting
  • 2
    GRPC-Web
  • 2
    Blash
  • 2
    Lightweight
  • 2
    Fast and easy to set up
  • 2
    Slim
  • 2
    saltstack
  • 1
    Virtual hosting
  • 1
    Narrow focus. Easy to configure. Fast
  • 1
    Along with Redis Cache its the Most superior
  • 1
    Ingress controller

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Cons of Actix
Cons of NGINX
  • 3
    Lots of unsafe code
  • 10
    Advanced features require subscription

Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

What is Actix?

It is a simple, pragmatic and extremely fast web framework for Rust. Actors are objects which encapsulate state and behavior, they communicate exclusively by exchanging messages.

What is NGINX?

nginx [engine x] is an HTTP and reverse proxy server, as well as a mail proxy server, written by Igor Sysoev. According to Netcraft nginx served or proxied 30.46% of the top million busiest sites in Jan 2018.

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