nginx [engine x] is a HTTP and reverse proxy server, as well as a mail proxy server written by Igor Sysoev. It has been running for more than five years on many heavily loaded Russian sites including Rambler (RamblerMedia.com). According to Netcraft nginx served or proxied 4.24% busiest sites in January 2010. Here are some of success stories: FastMail.FM, Wordpress.com.
Basic HTTP server features
Serving static and index files, and autoindexing; open file descriptor cache;
Accelerated reverse proxying with caching; simple load balancing and fault tolerance;
Accelerated support with caching of FastCGI, uwsgi, SCGI, and memcached servers; simple load balancing and fault tolerance;
Modular architecture. Filters include gzipping, byte ranges, chunked responses, XSLT, SSI, and image transformation filter. Multiple SSI inclusions within a single page can be processed in parallel if they are handled by proxied or FastCGI servers;
SSL and TLS SNI support.
Other HTTP server features
Name-based and IP-based virtual servers;
Keep-alive and pipelined connections support;
Flexible configuration;
Reconfiguration and upgrade of an executable without interruption of the client servicing;
Access log formats, buffered log writing, and fast log rotation;
3xx-5xx error codes redirection;
The rewrite module: URI changing using regular expressions;
Executing different functions depending on the client address;
Access control based on client IP address and HTTP Basic authentication;
The PUT, DELETE, MKCOL, COPY, and MOVE methods;
FLV and MP4 streaming;
Response rate limiting;
Limiting the number of simultaneous connections or requests coming from one address;
Embedded Perl.
