What Is Nginx? Complete Guide to Installing and Configuring Nginx Web Server

What Is Nginx?

Nginx (pronounced engine-x) is a high-performance, open-source web server designed with an event-driven, non-blocking architecture. Thanks to this design, Nginx can handle tens of thousands of concurrent connections while consuming significantly fewer system resources than traditional web servers such as Apache.

Today, Nginx is widely used not only as a web server, but also as:

• Reverse Proxy
• Load Balancer
• HTTP Cache
• SSL/TLS Termination
• Gateway for Microservices architectures

Many large websites and production systems worldwide rely on Nginx for its stability, security, and scalability.

Nginx Overview

• Author: Igor Sysoev
• Developer: Nginx, Inc. (now part of F5 Networks)
• Initial release: October 4, 2004
• Programming language: C
• Supported OS: Linux, BSD, macOS, Windows, Solaris
• Software type: Web server, reverse proxy, mail proxy
• Official website: https://nginx.org

Why Use Nginx?

Compared to Apache, Nginx offers several important advantages:

• Excellent performance under high concurrency
• Low memory and CPU usage
• Ideal for high-traffic websites
• Powerful reverse proxy and load balancing capabilities
• Faster page load times, improving SEO and Core Web Vitals
• Well-suited for VPS, Cloud Servers, Docker, and Kubernetes

Because of these benefits, Nginx is commonly used for:

• Optimized WordPress websites
• Advertising landing pages
• Backend APIs
• SEO and affiliate websites

How to Install Nginx Web Server on Linux

Install Nginx

On CentOS / RHEL / Rocky Linux / AlmaLinux

 sudo yum install -y nginx 

On Ubuntu / Debian / Linux Mint

 sudo apt update' sudo apt install -y nginx 

Start Nginx and Enable Auto-Start on Boot

 sudo systemctl start nginx sudo systemctl enable nginx 

Check service status:

 sudo systemctl status nginx 

Open Firewall Ports for Nginx

By default, the firewall blocks ports 80 and 443. You need to allow them to access your website.

CentOS / RHEL / Rocky Linux

 
sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=80/tcp --permanent 
sudo firewall-cmd --reload 

Ubuntu / Debian

 sudo ufw allow 'Nginx Full' 

Verify Installation

Open your browser and visit:

 http://your_server_ip_or_domain 

Essential Nginx Management Commands

Important Nginx Files and Directories

Configuring Virtual Hosts (Server Blocks)

Each website should have its own Virtual Host for better management and SEO optimization.

➜ See More: Nginx Virtual Hosts Configuration Guide

Example basic configuration:

server {
   listen 80;
   server_name example.com www.example.com;

   root /var/www/example.com;
   index index.php index.html;

   access_log /var/log/nginx/example_access.log;
   error_log /var/log/nginx/example_error.log;

   location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
   }
}

Nginx Logging Configuration

Then reload Nginx: By default, Nginx logs are stored in:

• access.log – records client requests
• error.log – records server errors

Configuration in nginx.conf:

 
http { 
   access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log; 
   error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log; 
} 

You can also define separate log files per website, which is very useful for SEO analysis and security monitoring.

Enable Gzip Compression

Gzip compression reduces the size of files (HTML, CSS, JS) sent from the server to the browser, resulting in faster page load times and improved SEO performance.

Add the following to nginx.conf:

 
http {
    gzip on;
    gzip_vary on;
    gzip_proxied any;
    gzip_comp_level 6;
    gzip_buffers 16 8k;
    gzip_http_version 1.1;
    gzip_types
        text/plain
        text/css
        application/json
        application/javascript
        text/xml
        application/xml
        application/xml+rss
        text/javascript;
}

Then reload Nginx:

 
sudo nginx -t 
sudo nginx -s reload 

Conclusion

Nginx is one of the most powerful, flexible, and SEO-friendly web servers available today, making it an excellent choice for:

• WordPress websites
• Affiliate blogs
• High-traffic websites
• API-driven systems
• Modern cloud and microservices architectures

If your goal is speed, stability, and scalability, Nginx is a top-tier solution.