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Puma vs Unicorn vs nginx: What are the differences?
Concurrency Model: Puma utilizes a threaded concurrency model where each worker process can handle multiple requests concurrently, while Unicorn uses a process-based concurrency model where each worker process can handle one request at a time. Nginx, on the other hand, is a high-performance web server and reverse proxy that can handle a large number of concurrent connections efficiently.
Memory Consumption: Puma tends to consume less memory compared to Unicorn as threads share memory resources more efficiently. Unicorn, being process-based, creates separate memory spaces for each worker process. Nginx is designed to maximize memory efficiency and is known for its low memory footprint.
Request Queuing: Puma has a built-in request queuing mechanism that can handle incoming requests when all worker threads are busy. Unicorn lacks a built-in request queuing mechanism, which may lead to dropped requests during heavy traffic. Nginx, as a reverse proxy, can buffer and queue incoming requests efficiently.
Ease of Configuration: Puma is relatively easier to configure and set up compared to Unicorn, which requires more manual configuration. Nginx also has a straightforward configuration process with flexible options for load balancing and caching settings.
Supported Platforms: Puma is designed to work well with all major platforms including Unix-based systems, whereas Unicorn may have compatibility issues on Windows due to its Unix-specific features. Nginx is platform-independent and is widely supported on various operating systems.
Scalability: Puma is more scalable as it can dynamically adjust the number of worker threads based on incoming traffic, while Unicorn requires manual tweaking of the worker processes. Nginx excels in scalability due to its event-driven architecture, capable of handling a large number of concurrent connections efficiently.
In Summary, Puma offers a threaded concurrency model with efficient memory usage and request queuing, making it easier to configure and supporting a wide range of platforms, while Unicorn is process-based with higher memory consumption and lacks built-in request queuing. Nginx, as a high-performance web server and reverse proxy, stands out for its scalability and efficient handling of concurrent connections.
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
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.
- 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 Puma
- Free4
- Convenient3
- Easy3
- Multithreaded2
- Consumes less memory than Unicorn2
- Default Rails server2
- First-class support for WebSockets2
- Lightweight1
- Fast1
Pros of Unicorn
- Fast81
- Performance59
- Web server36
- Very light30
- Open Source30
- Rack http server27
- Load balancing18
- Great process management14
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Cons of NGINX
- Advanced features require subscription10
Cons of Puma
- Uses `select` (limited client count)0
Cons of Unicorn
- Not multithreaded4
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