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🚀 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:

  1. A single worker process can handle thousands of concurrent connections.
  2. NGINX uses epoll (Linux), kqueue (BSD/macOS), or other OS-level event notification systems.
  3. 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.

#WebServerWars #NGINXvsApache #WebPerformance #ServerOptimization #TechDeepDive #HighTrafficHandling #DevOpsLife
#BackendBattle #ScalableArchitecture #AsynchronousProgramming

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Ashikur Rahman
Ashikur Rahman

Written by Ashikur Rahman

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Hi. I am Ashikur Rahman. Networking and System Engineer and Certified Mikrotik, GCP and AWS Devops.

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