🚀 Apache vs NGINX: Why NGINX Handles High Traffic More Efficiently
2 min readJun 9, 2025
đź§µ Apache: Thread/Process-Based Model
Apache HTTP Server traditionally uses a thread or process-per-connection model, depending on the MPM (Multi-Processing Module) being used:
- Prefork MPM: Creates a new process for each request.
- Worker/Event MPM: Uses threads to handle multiple requests more efficiently than Prefork, but still spawns a thread per connection.
How it works:
- When a client sends a request, Apache spawns a new thread (or process).
- That thread remains occupied until the entire request-response cycle is completed.
- If many clients connect simultaneously, Apache must create and manage many threads.
Problem:
- Each thread consumes memory and CPU.
- As traffic increases, the server becomes overloaded with threads, causing slowdowns, high memory usage, or even crashes.
⚙️ NGINX: Event-Driven, Asynchronous Architecture
NGINX takes a completely different and more scalable approach.
Instead of using one thread per connection, NGINX uses:
- An event-driven model
- Non-blocking I/O
- Worker processes (usually one per CPU core)
How it works:
- A single worker process can handle thousands of concurrent connections.
- NGINX uses
epoll
(Linux),kqueue
(BSD/macOS), or other OS-level event notification systems. - When a request comes in (GET, POST, etc.):
- The socket layer accepts it and adds it to the event loop.
- The worker process processes requests asynchronously.
- No new thread or process is created per request.
NGINX processes multiple requests concurrently within the same process, thanks to the event loop.
🔄 Real Example Comparison
đź§ Key Takeaway
- Apache waits for each thread to finish, leading to bottlenecks.
- NGINX doesn’t block — it handles connections asynchronously and serves users without waiting for others to finish.
- This makes NGINX much more suitable for high-traffic websites, APIs, reverse proxies, and real-time systems.
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