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Web / NGINX Interview questions

What are the main features of NGINX?

NGINX bundles several capabilities that would otherwise require separate tools:

  • Reverse proxying - forwarding client requests to one or more backend applications.
  • Load balancing - distributing traffic across multiple upstream servers.
  • Static content serving - delivering HTML, CSS, JS, and media files directly, without hitting the application layer.
  • SSL/TLS termination - decrypting HTTPS traffic before it reaches the backend.
  • Caching - storing responses to reduce repeated backend work.
  • Compression - shrinking responses with Gzip or Brotli before sending them to clients.

All of this runs on a lightweight, event-driven core, so a single NGINX instance can handle a large number of simultaneous connections with a small memory footprint.

Which capability lets NGINX deliver HTML, CSS, and image files without involving the application layer?
What underlying design lets a single NGINX instance handle many simultaneous connections efficiently?

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