Nginx is an open-source web server software that can be used for web serving, reverse proxying, caching, load balancing, media streaming, and more. It was created by Igor Sysoev and publicly released in 2004. Nginx is designed for maximum performance and stability, and it uses an asynchronous, event-driven approach to handle requests. Some key features of Nginx include:

• Web server: Nginx can serve static content on the network using HTTP or HTTPS protocols.
• Reverse proxy: Nginx can act as an intermediary between clients and a second web server, to serve as an SSL/TLS terminator or web accelerator.
• Load balancer: Nginx can distribute incoming traffic to slower upstream servers, such as legacy database servers or microservices.
• Caching: Nginx can cache content to improve performance, such as compressing and caching content.

Nginx is free and open-source software, released under the terms of the 2-clause BSD license. It is widely used by a large fraction of web servers, often as a load balancer. Nginx can also be deployed to serve dynamic content on the network using FastCGI, SCGI handlers for scripts, WSGI application servers or Phusion Passenger modules. Nginxs modular event-driven architecture can provide predictable performance under high loads. Nginx Plus and Nginx are the best-in-class web server and application delivery solutions used by high-traffic websites such as Dropbox, Netflix, and Zynga.