nginx
by nginx · HTTP server, reverse proxy, content cache and load balancer
BenchRank score
Screenshots of nginx
Homepage
Overview
nginx is an HTTP web server that also acts as a reverse proxy, content cache, load balancer, TCP/UDP proxy and mail proxy. It was originally written by Igor Sysoev and is distributed under the 2-clause BSD License. Releases ship in parallel stable and mainline lines, and F5, Inc. sells enterprise distributions, commercial support and training separately.
- Best for
- Teams self-hosting a web server, reverse proxy, cache and load balancer under a BSD licence
- Pricing
- No prices are shown; nginx itself is distributed under the 2-clause BSD License, with enterprise distributions, commercial support and training available from F5, Inc. at unstated cost.
Strengths and trade-offs
Strengths
- One server covers HTTP, reverse proxy, cache and load balancing
- Also handles TCP/UDP proxying and mail proxying
- Distributed under the 2-clause BSD License
- Commercial support and training available from F5, Inc.
Trade-offs
- Recent releases patched several CVEs; needs prompt updating
- Stable and mainline release lines run in parallel; you must pick one
- njs deprecates its own engine in favour of QuickJS, a migration cost
- No published figures for the F5 enterprise distributions or support
Pricing
Published plans and prices from nginx’s own pricing page.
How this score is made up
Each dimension is scored out of 100 and combined into the headline score using fixed weights.
MCP support
Whether an agent can drive the product through the Model Context Protocol, and how much setup that takes.
Documentation
Publicly reachable docs — coverage, freshness, code samples and machine readability.
Agent friendliness
How readable the site is to an automated client: llms.txt, structured data, server-rendered content, crawler access.
Changelog
A public, dated record of what shipped and when — the clearest signal that a product is still alive.
Marketing site structure
Whether the site answers a buyer's questions: clear positioning, the pages that matter, and accessibility.
Page speed
How fast the site loads for real visitors: Chrome UX Report 75th-percentile LCP, INP and CLS, with a Lighthouse mobile run standing in where a site has too little traffic for field data.
Operational trust
Status page and incident history, security disclosure, compliance and data-processing documentation.
Measured, but not part of the score
Useful to know, but not a mark for or against the product — so these do not affect the ranking.
Openness
Source availability, self-hosting, data export and open standards. Scored and shown, but not part of the composite — paid SaaS is not worse for being paid SaaS.
Maintenance
Release cadence and repository activity. Scored and shown, but not part of the composite — it is only measurable for open repositories.
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Where this comes from
The nginx pages BenchRank reads when it scores the product — its documentation, release notes, status and security pages, and its repository where there is one.
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