Sometimes the best things are the most humble and unassuming ones. Stacks like the Apache HTTP Server, Nginx, and Node.js may be powering more and more of the Web, but let's not overlook their invisible helpers. Varnish is an HTTP caching and acceleration proxy, designed to do one thing and do it well: make Web pages load faster. The creators boast speedups of anywhere from 300 to 1,000 times, "depending on your architecture." Varnish comes with its own configuration language to allow fine-tuning for your needs, add-on modules for dealing with everything from authentication to secure downloads, and extremely liberal licensing.
Created
October 17, 2013 18:40
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Why Nginx is the (non node.js) server of choice?
Apache HTTP Server, move over. In the space of only a couple of years, Nginx has risen to become one of the most widely used Web servers out there. It's not hard to see why. Nginx delivers terrific performance -- thanks to an event-driven architecture that consumes very little memory per request. Its ability to simultaneously handle thousands of requests without choking up has made it a key component of many major Web stacks, from Netflix and Pinterest to Heroku and WordPress.com. A superfast server of static Web pages and a highly efficient proxy to Apache and other services, Nginx has been the key to unlocking high performance for many heavily trafficked websites.
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