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Amazon EC2 vs nginx: What are the differences?
Introduction
In this markdown document, we will explore the key differences between Amazon EC2 and Nginx. Amazon EC2 is a cloud-based virtual server service offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS), while Nginx is a popular open-source web server and reverse proxy server.
Scalability and Infrastructure: Amazon EC2 provides the infrastructure for deploying and managing virtual servers in the cloud. It allows users to scale their resources up or down based on demand, making it suitable for applications with varying traffic loads. On the other hand, Nginx is a software server that runs on top of an operating system. It can be used as a single server or in a distributed setup, providing scalability options based on the underlying hardware configuration.
Purpose: Amazon EC2 is primarily designed for hosting applications and services on virtual servers in the cloud. It offers various instance types optimized for different workloads, such as CPU-intensive, memory-intensive, or storage-intensive applications. In contrast, Nginx is specifically designed as a web server and reverse proxy server. It excels at efficiently handling HTTP requests, serving static content, and load balancing across multiple servers.
Pricing Model: Amazon EC2 follows a pay-as-you-go pricing model, where users are charged based on the usage of virtual server instances, storage, and additional services. The cost can vary based on factors such as instance type, region, and usage patterns. Nginx, being an open-source software, is free to use. However, commercial support and additional features may require a paid subscription to Nginx Plus.
Management and Configuration: Amazon EC2 provides a comprehensive set of management tools and APIs for provisioning, monitoring, and managing virtual servers in the cloud. It offers features like auto scaling, Elastic Load Balancing, and integration with other AWS services for seamless deployment and management. On the other hand, Nginx requires manual installation and configuration on the desired servers. It provides a flexible configuration system that allows users to control various aspects of server behavior.
Platform Support: Amazon EC2 is a cloud-based service available on the AWS platform. It supports a wide range of operating systems and applications, allowing users to run their preferred software stack on virtual server instances. Nginx, being a software server, can be installed on a variety of operating systems, including Linux, Unix, macOS, and Windows.
Community and Ecosystem: Amazon EC2 is part of the broader AWS ecosystem, which offers a wide range of cloud-based services and features for building scalable and reliable applications. It has a large community of users and extensive documentation available for reference. Nginx, being a popular open-source project, also has a strong community and ecosystem. It has an active user forum, extensive online resources, and a rich ecosystem of third-party modules and plugins.
In summary, Amazon EC2 provides virtual server infrastructure in the cloud with scalability and extensive management features, while Nginx is a versatile web server and reverse proxy server with a powerful configuration system and a vibrant open-source community.
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!
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.
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."
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.
I use nginx because its more flexible and easy to configure
I use Apache HTTP Server because it's intuitive, comprehensive, well-documented, and just works
- 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.
DigitalOcean was where I began; its USD5/month is extremely competitive and the overall experience as highly user-friendly.
However, their offerings were lacking and integrating with other resources I had on AWS was getting more costly (due to transfer costs on AWS). Eventually I moved the entire project off DO's Droplets and onto AWS's EC2.
One may initially find the cost (w/o free tier) and interface of AWS daunting however with good planning you can achieve highly cost-efficient systems with savings plans, spot instances, etcetera.
Do not dive into AWS head-first! Seriously, don't. Stand back and read pricing documentation thoroughly. You can, not to the fault of AWS, easily go way overbudget. Your first action upon getting your AWS account should be to set up billing alarms for estimated and current bill totals.
We first selected Google Cloud Platform about five years ago, because HIPAA compliance was significantly cheaper and easier on Google compared to AWS. We have stayed with Google Cloud because it provides an excellent command line tool for managing resources, and every resource has a well-designed, well-documented API. SDKs for most of these APIs are available for many popular languages. I have never worked with a cloud platform that's so amenable to automation. Google is also ahead of its competitors in Kubernetes support.
GCE is much more user friendly than EC2, though Amazon has come a very long way since the early days (pre-2010's). This can be seen in how easy it is to edit the storage attached to an instance in GCE: it's under the instance details and is edited inline. In AWS you have to click the instance > click the storage block device (new screen) > click the edit option (new modal) > resize the volume > confirm (new model) then wait a very long time. Google's is nearly instant.
- In both cases, the instance much be shut down.
There also the preference between "user burden-of-security" and automatic security: AWS goes for the former, GCE the latter.
Most bioinformatics shops nowadays are hosting on AWS or Azure, since they have HIPAA tiers and offer enterprise SLA contracts. Meanwhile Heroku hasn't historically supported HIPAA. Rackspace and Google Cloud would be other hosting providers we would consider, but we just don't get requests for them. So, we mostly focus on AWS and Azure support.
Pros of Amazon EC2
- Quick and reliable cloud servers647
- Scalability515
- Easy management393
- Low cost277
- Auto-scaling271
- Market leader89
- Backed by amazon80
- Reliable79
- Free tier67
- Easy management, scalability58
- Flexible13
- Easy to Start10
- Widely used9
- Web-scale9
- Elastic9
- Node.js API7
- Industry Standard5
- Lots of configuration options4
- GPU instances2
- Simpler to understand and learn1
- Extremely simple to use1
- Amazing for individuals1
- All the Open Source CLI tools you could want.1
Pros of NGINX
- High-performance http server1.4K
- Performance894
- Easy to configure730
- Open source607
- Load balancer530
- Free289
- Scalability288
- Web server226
- Simplicity175
- Easy setup136
- Content caching30
- Web Accelerator21
- Capability15
- Fast14
- High-latency12
- Predictability12
- Reverse Proxy8
- Supports http/27
- The best of them7
- Great Community5
- Lots of Modules5
- Enterprise version5
- High perfomance proxy server4
- Embedded Lua scripting3
- Streaming media delivery3
- Streaming media3
- Reversy Proxy3
- Blash2
- GRPC-Web2
- Lightweight2
- Fast and easy to set up2
- Slim2
- saltstack2
- Virtual hosting1
- Narrow focus. Easy to configure. Fast1
- Along with Redis Cache its the Most superior1
- Ingress controller1
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Cons of Amazon EC2
- Ui could use a lot of work13
- High learning curve when compared to PaaS6
- Extremely poor CPU performance3
Cons of NGINX
- Advanced features require subscription10
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