Nginx vs Apache: Which Web Server Should You Use?

Apache HTTP Server and Nginx (pronounced "engine-x") together serve a huge share of the world's websites. Both are free, open source, mature and fast enough for the vast majority of sites. The Nginx vs Apache decision therefore comes down to how each handles connections, how they are configured, and what your application and hosting setup expect. This article explains the differences and how to choose, including the popular option of using both.

A quick history

Apache has been developed since the mid-1990s and became the default web server on Linux for a generation of hosting. Its module system and per-directory .htaccess files made it extremely flexible for shared hosting. Nginx was created by Igor Sysoev in the early 2000s to handle very large numbers of simultaneous connections efficiently, a problem then known as "C10k" (ten thousand concurrent clients).

Architecture: the core difference

Apache uses Multi-Processing Modules (MPMs) to decide how it handles connections:

• prefork: one process per connection. Simple and compatible with non-thread-safe modules like the old mod_php, but memory-hungry.
• worker: multiple threads per process.
• event: like worker, but keep-alive connections are handed to a listener thread so idle clients do not tie up workers. This is the default on modern distributions.

Nginx uses an event-driven, asynchronous model: a small number of worker processes (usually one per CPU core) each handle thousands of connections in a non-blocking loop. Memory use stays low and predictable even with many slow or idle clients.

In practice, Apache with the event MPM and PHP-FPM narrows the gap considerably. Nginx still tends to use less memory under heavy concurrent load and excels at serving static files and acting as a reverse proxy.

Nginx vs Apache compared

The .htaccess question

Apache reads .htaccess files from each directory on every request, allowing rewrites, redirects and access rules to be changed without touching the main configuration or restarting the server. That is invaluable on shared hosting, where customers cannot edit server config, and many applications (WordPress, Laravel's default public folder, many PHP CMSs) ship with .htaccess rules.

Nginx deliberately has no equivalent. All rules live in the server configuration and take effect on reload. This is faster, since there are no per-request file lookups, and centralises control, but it means translating any .htaccess rules your application relies on. For WordPress pretty permalinks, for example, Nginx needs:

location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
}

The Apache equivalent is the familiar block WordPress writes itself:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

Configuration style

Apache uses XML-like blocks such as <VirtualHost> and <Directory>; Nginx uses nested server and location blocks. Neither is objectively better. Nginx's location matching rules (exact, prefix, regular expression, with a specific priority order) trip up newcomers, so read the official location documentation before writing complex rules. Always test changes before reloading:

sudo nginx -t && sudo systemctl reload nginx
sudo apachectl configtest && sudo systemctl reload apache2   # httpd on RHEL family

Using both: Nginx in front of Apache

A common pattern places Nginx as a reverse proxy on ports 80 and 443. Nginx terminates TLS, serves static files and caches responses, then passes dynamic requests to Apache listening on a local port. Applications keep working with .htaccess, while Nginx absorbs slow clients and connection-heavy traffic. Plesk uses this layout by default on Linux, and cPanel offers it as an option.

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name example.com;
    # ssl_certificate lines omitted

    location ~* \.(css|js|png|jpg|svg|woff2)$ {
        root /var/www/example/public;
        expires 30d;
    }

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }
}

Apache then needs mod_remoteip configured to log the real visitor IP instead of 127.0.0.1. The trade-off is two servers to configure, update and troubleshoot.

Which should you use?

• Choose Apache if you run shared hosting, rely on applications that depend heavily on .htaccess, need a specific Apache module, or your team already knows it well.
• Choose Nginx for new deployments of modern applications (Node.js, Python, Go and PHP via PHP-FPM), high-traffic sites, reverse proxying, load balancing and container environments.
• Use both when you want Nginx's front-end strengths without rewriting existing Apache rules.

Performance differences matter far less than caching, application efficiency and database tuning. A well-configured Apache server will outperform a badly configured Nginx server every time. Check which server your site reports and whether compression and caching headers are set with our HTTP header checker. For help tuning either, see our server management service.

Key takeaways

• Apache is process/thread-based and flexible, with per-directory .htaccess rules.
• Nginx is event-driven, light on memory and excellent for static files and reverse proxying.
• Both run PHP efficiently through PHP-FPM.
• Nginx in front of Apache combines the strengths of each, at the cost of extra complexity.