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Nginx

Nginx configuration for web serving, reverse proxying, SSL termination, and performance tuning that keeps web applications fast and secure under load.

What This Is

Nginx is the web server that sits between the internet and your application. Every HTTP request — whether it is a browser loading a page, a mobile app calling an API, or a search engine crawling your site — passes through Nginx before reaching your PHP, Node.js, or Python application. How Nginx is configured determines how fast static assets are served, how efficiently connections are handled, whether SSL is configured correctly, and how the server behaves under heavy traffic.

We run Nginx as the web server for every production application we deploy. It handles SSL termination, serves static files directly without involving the application runtime, proxies dynamic requests to PHP-FPM or Node.js processes, and applies caching headers that reduce server load and improve page load times for returning visitors. Nginx’s event-driven architecture handles thousands of concurrent connections with minimal memory overhead — a fundamental advantage over thread-per-connection servers like Apache for high-traffic applications.

Nginx configuration is deceptively consequential. A misconfigured server block can expose environment files. Missing security headers leave applications vulnerable to clickjacking and XSS. Incorrect proxy settings break WebSocket connections. Overly aggressive caching serves stale content. Absent gzip or Brotli compression wastes bandwidth on every request. These are not edge cases — they are common configuration mistakes that we see regularly when auditing existing server setups.

When You Need This

Nginx configuration is relevant whenever your application runs on a server you control rather than a fully managed platform. Common scenarios:

  • You are deploying a web application and need the web server configured for optimal performance, security, and reliability
  • Your application serves static assets (images, CSS, JavaScript) that should bypass the application runtime entirely
  • SSL configuration needs to follow current best practices — TLS 1.3, strong cipher suites, HSTS, and certificate management
  • The server needs to reverse proxy to multiple backend services — PHP-FPM, Node.js, or Python applications behind a single domain
  • WebSocket connections for real-time features need proper proxy configuration with upgrade handling
  • Performance tuning is required — gzip/Brotli compression, browser caching headers, connection keep-alive, and buffer sizing
  • You need multiple sites on a single server with proper virtual host isolation

This is not relevant for applications on platforms that manage the web server layer for you (Vercel, Heroku, managed WordPress hosting). Nginx configuration applies when you control the server or use cloud instances that you provision.

How We Work

Nginx projects start with a security-first configuration baseline. Server blocks include security headers (X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options, Referrer-Policy, Content-Security-Policy), hide Nginx version information, and restrict access to sensitive file paths (.env, .git, composer.json). SSL uses Let’s Encrypt certificates with automated renewal, TLS 1.2/1.3 only, and HSTS headers with a reasonable max-age.

Static asset serving is configured to bypass the application entirely. Nginx serves images, CSS, JavaScript, fonts, and other static files directly from disk with appropriate cache-control headers. Browser caching for versioned assets (files with content hashes in their names) uses long max-age values. Unversioned assets get shorter cache durations or ETags for revalidation. This single optimisation — serving static files from Nginx rather than through PHP — can reduce application server load by 50% or more on content-heavy sites.

Reverse proxy configuration connects Nginx to backend application processes. For PHP applications, this means FastCGI configuration connecting to PHP-FPM with appropriate buffer sizes, timeout values, and connection pooling. For Node.js applications, this means HTTP proxy with WebSocket upgrade support. For applications with multiple backend services, Nginx routes requests based on URL path or subdomain to the appropriate upstream.

Compression is configured at the Nginx level for text-based responses. Gzip is enabled for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JSON, XML, and SVG responses. Where supported, Brotli provides better compression ratios. Compression settings are tuned to balance CPU usage against bandwidth savings — over-compressing small responses wastes CPU without meaningful size reduction.

What You Get

  • Web server configuration — server blocks, document roots, and routing for single or multi-site setups
  • SSL/TLS setup — Let’s Encrypt certificates, automated renewal, strong cipher configuration, and HSTS
  • Security headers — X-Frame-Options, CSP, HSTS, and file access restrictions
  • Reverse proxy — FastCGI to PHP-FPM, HTTP proxy to Node.js, and WebSocket upgrade handling
  • Static asset serving — direct file serving with cache-control headers and versioned asset support
  • Compression — gzip and Brotli configuration for text-based responses
  • Performance tuning — worker processes, connection limits, buffer sizes, and keep-alive configuration

Technologies We Use

  • Nginx 1.24+ — current stable version with HTTP/2, TLS 1.3, and stream module support
  • Let’s Encrypt / Certbot — automated SSL certificate issuance and renewal
  • PHP-FPM — FastCGI process manager for PHP application serving
  • Brotli — compression module for improved text compression ratios
  • HTTP/2 — multiplexed connections for parallel asset loading
  • Nginx stream module — TCP/UDP proxying for non-HTTP protocols
  • logrotate — access and error log rotation with compression

Related Systems

Nginx serves applications built with Laravel (via PHP-FPM) and Node.js (via reverse proxy). It runs on Linux servers and sits behind Cloudflare CDN and DDoS protection. Static assets served by Nginx are compiled by Vite. Server monitoring tracks Nginx metrics alongside application performance.

Talk to Us About Nginx

If your web server needs configuration, security hardening, or performance tuning, get in touch and we will audit the current setup and implement improvements.

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