Nginx (pronounced engine-x) is a free, open-source, high-performance HTTP
server and reverse proxy, as well as an IMAP/POP3 proxy server. Igor Sysoev
started development of Nginx in 2002, with the first public release in 2004.
Nginx now hosts nearly 12.18% (22.2M) of active sites across all domains.
Nginx is known for its high performance, stability, rich feature set, simple
configuration, and low resource consumption.

Nginx is one of a handful of servers written to address the C10K problem.
Unlike traditional servers, Nginx doesn't rely on threads to handle requests.
Instead it uses a much more scalable event-driven (asynchronous) architecture.
This architecture uses small, but more importantly, predictable amounts of
memory under load.
Even if you don't expect to handle thousands of simultaneous requests, you can
still benefit from Nginx's high-performance and small memory footprint.
Nginx scales in all directions: from the smallest VPS all the way up to
clusters of servers.

Nginx powers several high-visibility sites, such as Netflix, Hulu, Pinterest,
CloudFlare, Airbnb, WordPress.com, GitHub, SoundCloud, Zynga, Eventbrite,
Zappos, Media Temple, Heroku, RightScale, Engine Yard and NetDNA.