This section will provide answers to the main questions about Nginx—how does it stand apart from the other servers? How does it compare to Apache? Whether you were using Apache before or considered it as a replacement for your current web server, why would you decide to adopt Nginx at the expense of the web server that empowers almost forty percent of websites worldwide?
With the reverse proxy configuration that was elaborated on in the previous chapter, the presence or absence of specific features wasn't much of a problem. This is because Nginx would simply have to differentiate between static and dynamic content, and consequently, serve the static file requests and forward the dynamic file requests to a backend server.
However, when you start considering Nginx as a possible full replacement for your current web server, you better make sure that you know what's in the box. If your projected architecture requires specific components, the first thing you would usually...