seirdy.one/content/notes/reasons-to-use-nginx.md

title	date	replyURI	replyTitle	replyType	replyAuthor	replyAuthorURI
Reasons to use Nginx	2022-09-09T13:52:55-07:00	https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32770766	Nginx…is legacy software being run into the ground	DiscussionForumPosting	nginxlegacy	https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=nginxlegacy

I generally recommend Caddy over Nginx, but Nginx does still have certain advantages:

• Nginx supports OpenSSL commands that enable features like TLS record padding.

• Performance: better latency and scalability to more connections. Not everyone uses a CDN for static/cached content

• Kernel-accelerated TLS offload on Linux and FreeBSD

• Many existing modules provide unique functionality. The many modules for live video streaming and image processing are good examples.

• An ecosystem of patches with features like HPACK static dictionaries, dynamic TLS record sizing, etce

…has terrible language integration.

Generally, "language integration" isn't really a use-case for vanilla Nginx; it's a use-case for Nginx Unit, an Nginx language-specific module, or OpenResty. I personally prefer the reverse-proxy route since it lets me use whatever language I want regardless of server support: Go, Rust, Python, C, etc.

If none of these are that important then I absolutely would not recommend Nginx; Caddy would be the better tool.

People aren't writing internet scale software in lua for a reason.

I'd include Itch.io, much of Taobao, and some of the most popular API gateways (including Kong) in the category of "Internet-scale software written by 'people'".