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nginx vs node-http-proxy: What are the differences?

Introduction

The purpose of this task is to provide a comparison between nginx and node-http-proxy, highlighting the key differences between the two options for website hosting and proxying.

  1. Compatibility: nginx is a web server and reverse proxy server, whereas node-http-proxy is a pure Node.js HTTP proxy library. While nginx can work with a wide range of web servers and technologies, node-http-proxy is specifically designed for Node.js applications.

  2. Simplicity: nginx is generally considered to be easier to set up and configure, with a simpler and more intuitive syntax for its configuration files. On the other hand, node-http-proxy requires deeper knowledge of JavaScript and the Node.js ecosystem to effectively utilize.

  3. Flexibility: nginx offers a wide range of features and modules, allowing for advanced functionalities such as load balancing, caching, SSL termination, and more. Node-http-proxy, being a JavaScript library, allows for greater flexibility and customization, as developers can modify and extend its behavior as per their specific requirements.

  4. Performance: nginx is highly regarded for its performance and efficiency, as it is designed to handle a large number of simultaneous connections and efficiently serve static content. Node-http-proxy leverages the capabilities of Node.js, which excels in handling I/O-intensive tasks, making it suitable for certain use cases, but it may not match the performance of nginx in all scenarios, especially for high-traffic websites.

  5. Community and Support: nginx has a large and active community, with extensive documentation, resources, and plugins available. It is a well-established solution used in production by many organizations. Node-http-proxy has a smaller community and may require more self-reliance, with fewer plugins and resources available.

  6. Ease of Integration: nginx can be easily integrated with other tools and technologies, such as Docker, Kubernetes, and CDN providers. It has integrations with various logging and monitoring tools as well. Node-http-proxy, being a library, can be integrated directly into Node.js applications but may require additional effort for integration with other systems.

In summary, nginx is a versatile web server and reverse proxy with a wide range of features, known for its performance and simplicity, while node-http-proxy offers flexibility and deeper integration options, but may require more expertise in the Node.js ecosystem.

Advice on NGINX and node-http-proxy

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 · 721K 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)
Recommends
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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
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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 · 686.8K views
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I use Apache HTTP Server because it's intuitive, comprehensive, well-documented, and just works

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Pros of NGINX
Pros of node-http-proxy
  • 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
  • 1
    Opensource
  • 1
    Programmable

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Cons of NGINX
Cons of node-http-proxy
  • 10
    Advanced features require subscription
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    - No public GitHub repository available -

    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.

    What is node-http-proxy?

    node-http-proxy is an HTTP programmable proxying library that supports websockets. It is suitable for implementing components such as proxies and load balancers.

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    What companies use NGINX?
    What companies use node-http-proxy?
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    What tools integrate with NGINX?
    What tools integrate with node-http-proxy?
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      What are some alternatives to NGINX and node-http-proxy?
      HAProxy
      HAProxy (High Availability Proxy) is a free, very fast and reliable solution offering high availability, load balancing, and proxying for TCP and HTTP-based applications.
      lighttpd
      lighttpd has a very low memory footprint compared to other webservers and takes care of cpu-load. Its advanced feature-set (FastCGI, CGI, Auth, Output-Compression, URL-Rewriting and many more) make lighttpd the perfect webserver-software for every server that suffers load problems.
      Traefik
      A modern HTTP reverse proxy and load balancer that makes deploying microservices easy. Traefik integrates with your existing infrastructure components and configures itself automatically and dynamically.
      Caddy
      Caddy 2 is a powerful, enterprise-ready, open source web server with automatic HTTPS written in Go.
      Envoy
      Originally built at Lyft, Envoy is a high performance C++ distributed proxy designed for single services and applications, as well as a communication bus and “universal data plane” designed for large microservice “service mesh” architectures.
      See all alternatives