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Jetty vs nginx: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this article, we will explore the key differences between Jetty and NGINX. Jetty and NGINX are both web servers, but they have some distinct differences in terms of their architecture, features, and use cases. Let's dive into the specific differences below.

  1. Architecture: Jetty is a Java-based web server and servlet container, while NGINX is a high-performance, event-driven web server that can also act as a reverse proxy, load balancer, and HTTP cache. Jetty is designed to embed into Java applications, making it suitable for building lightweight, standalone web servers. In contrast, NGINX is a standalone server that can handle a large number of concurrent connections.

  2. Performance: NGINX is known for its exceptional performance and scalability. It uses an asynchronous, non-blocking event-driven architecture that allows it to handle a large number of simultaneous connections efficiently. Jetty also performs well, but it is not as fast as NGINX when it comes to handling high volumes of traffic or serving static content.

  3. Flexibility: NGINX offers extensive configuration options and advanced load balancing capabilities, making it a popular choice for high-traffic websites and applications. It also supports a wide range of modules and can be extended through third-party modules. Jetty, on the other hand, provides a lightweight and flexible environment for deploying Java web applications. It integrates well with Java frameworks and libraries, making it a preferred choice for Java developers.

  4. SSL/TLS support: NGINX has robust built-in support for SSL/TLS encryption and can efficiently handle thousands of simultaneous SSL/TLS connections. Jetty also supports SSL/TLS encryption but doesn't have the same level of performance and scalability for handling a large number of encrypted connections.

  5. Caching: NGINX has sophisticated caching capabilities, allowing it to serve static content quickly and reduce the load on backend servers. It can cache both static and dynamic content, improving overall performance and reducing response times. Jetty also supports basic caching mechanisms, but it doesn't have the same level of caching features and optimizations as NGINX.

  6. WebSockets: NGINX supports WebSockets, which enables it to handle real-time, bidirectional communication between clients and servers. It can proxy WebSocket connections, making it suitable for building real-time applications. Jetty also supports WebSockets and provides a WebSocket API for building WebSocket applications.

In summary, Jetty is a lightweight, Java-based web server that is ideal for embedding into Java applications, while NGINX is a powerful, high-performance web server that excels in handling high volumes of traffic, serving static content efficiently, and acting as a reverse proxy.

Advice on Jetty 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 · 711.9K views
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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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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)
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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
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I use nginx because its more flexible and easy to configure

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Christian Cwienk
Software Developer at SAP · | 1 upvotes · 678.3K views
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I use Apache HTTP Server because it's intuitive, comprehensive, well-documented, and just works

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Decisions about Jetty and NGINX
Daniel Calvo
Co-Founder at Polpo Data Analytics & Software Development · | 8 upvotes · 266.6K views

For us, NGINX is a lite HTTP server easy to configure. On our research, we found a well-documented software we a lot of support from the community.

We have been using it alongside tools like certbot and it has been a total success.

We can easily configure our sites and have a folder for available vs enabled sites, and with the nginx -t command we can easily check everything is running fine.

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Grant Steuart
  • Server rendered HTML output from PHP is being migrated to the client as Vue.js components, future plans to provide additional content, and other new miscellaneous features all result in a substantial increase of static files needing to be served from the server. NGINX has better performance than Apache for serving static content.
  • The change to NGINX will require switching from PHP to PHP-FPM resulting in a distributed architecture with a higher complexity configuration, but this is outweighed by PHP-FPM being faster than PHP for processing requests.
  • The NGINX + PHP-FPM setup now allows for horizontally scaling of resources rather vertically scaling the previously combined Apache + PHP resources.
  • PHP shell tasks can now efficiently be decoupled from the application reducing main application footprint and allow for scaling of tasks on an individual basis.
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Pros of Jetty
Pros of NGINX
  • 15
    Lightweight
  • 10
    Embeddable
  • 10
    Very fast
  • 6
    Very thin
  • 6
    Scalable
  • 1.4K
    High-performance http server
  • 894
    Performance
  • 730
    Easy to configure
  • 607
    Open source
  • 530
    Load balancer
  • 289
    Free
  • 288
    Scalability
  • 226
    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
    Embedded Lua scripting
  • 3
    Streaming media delivery
  • 3
    Streaming media
  • 3
    Reversy Proxy
  • 2
    Blash
  • 2
    GRPC-Web
  • 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 Jetty
Cons of NGINX
  • 0
    Student
  • 10
    Advanced features require subscription

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What is Jetty?

Jetty is used in a wide variety of projects and products, both in development and production. Jetty can be easily embedded in devices, tools, frameworks, application servers, and clusters. See the Jetty Powered page for more uses of Jetty.

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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Wildfly
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JBoss
An application platform for hosting your apps that provides an innovative modular, cloud-ready architecture, powerful management and automation, and world class developer productivity.
GlassFish
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