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OpenResty vs nginx: What are the differences?
OpenResty and Nginx are both popular web server and reverse proxy server solutions. Let's explore the key differences between them.
Architecture: OpenResty is a full-fledged web application server built on top of Nginx, integrating Nginx with LuaJIT, whereas Nginx is a lightweight and high-performance web server and reverse proxy server.
Extensibility: OpenResty provides extensive capabilities for dynamic content generation and processing through Lua scripting, allowing developers to extend Nginx functionality with custom Lua modules, whereas Nginx primarily relies on modules written in C for extensibility.
Functionality: OpenResty offers advanced features such as dynamic content generation, request routing, authentication, caching, and content compression directly within the Nginx server, whereas Nginx focuses on serving static content, proxying requests, and load balancing.
Ease of Use: OpenResty may have a steeper learning curve due to its Lua scripting integration and additional functionalities, making it more suitable for developers with Lua programming experience, while Nginx is relatively easier to configure and deploy for basic web server tasks.
Performance: OpenResty can achieve high performance and efficiency for dynamic content generation and processing, especially when leveraging LuaJIT's just-in-time compilation capabilities, whereas Nginx excels in serving static content and handling high volumes of concurrent connections efficiently.
Community and Ecosystem: Nginx has a larger and more mature community and ecosystem, with extensive documentation, tutorials, and third-party modules available, whereas OpenResty has a smaller but growing community focused on Lua scripting and OpenResty-specific modules and applications.
In summary, OpenResty extends Nginx's capabilities with Lua scripting, offering advanced features for dynamic content generation and processing, while Nginx focuses on serving static content and proxying requests efficiently. Although OpenResty provides enhanced functionality, it may require a higher level of expertise in Lua programming, whereas Nginx remains a versatile and straightforward solution for many web server tasks.
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.
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
- The best of them7
- Supports http/27
- 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
Pros of OpenResty
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Cons of NGINX
- Advanced features require subscription10
Cons of OpenResty
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