If you’ve spun up a web server in the last decade, you’ve probably copy-pasted an NGINX config file. It’s the bread and butter of the internet. Today, I’m taking a look at the NGINX Reverse Proxy.
You know the drill: you have a Node, Python, or Go application running on port 3000, but you need to expose it to the world on port 80/443 without letting the raw internet touch your fragile application process. Enter NGINX.
Here is the lowdown on the web’s favorite traffic cop.
The Gist
At its core, the reverse proxy feature allows NGINX to sit in front of your application. It accepts the client request, turns around, makes a request to your backend, gets the result, and hands it back to the client.
The configuration is deceptively simple. It usually looks something like this:
location /some/path/ { proxy_pass http://www.example.com/link/; }
That one line, proxy_pass, does a massive amount of heavy lifting.
My Lab Configuration
For this test, I used the following: Physical 2 x Raspberry Pi5 2 x Raspberry Pi4 MSI NUC Mini PC 32 Cores 32GB RAM and 250GB NVME Router Dedicated 1GBps Network Switch
Logical 4 (2VMs) Master\Control Plane Nodes -running ubuntu with k3s 4 (2VMs) Worker Nodes -running ubuntu with k3s Proxmox K8s Cluster
Workloads/Services Cert Manager Nginx Prometheus ArgoCD GitHub —
The Good Stuff (The Advantages)
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It is ridiculously fast NGINX uses an event-driven, asynchronous architecture. In plain English? It doesn’t spawn a new process for every connection. It can handle thousands of concurrent connections with very little memory. It essentially “sips” resources while your backend app “gulps” them.
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Buffering and Caching Slow clients can kill a backend application. NGINX handles this by buffering the response. Your backend generates the page, hands it to NGINX instantly, and goes back to sleep. NGINX then trickles that data down to the user on their slow mobile connection. Plus, the caching capabilities are top-tier.
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SSL Termination Setting up HTTPS in a Node or Ruby app is annoying. With NGINX, you terminate the SSL at the proxy. Your internal traffic can remain HTTP (safe inside your private network), saving your app the CPU cycles required for encryption/decryption.
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Header Manipulation Need to strip out sensitive headers? Need to add the client’s real IP so your logs make sense? proxy_set_header is your best friend.
The Not-So-Good Stuff (The Drawbacks)
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The Config Syntax Curve NGINX config files are mostly readable, but when they break, they break hard. Missing a semicolon? syntax error. Put a brace in the wrong spot? syntax error. Trying to understand the specific priority order of location blocks (regex vs. literal matches) can be a headache for beginners.
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Observability (in the free version) The open-source version of NGINX gives you a basic “stub_status” page, but if you want deep metrics, visual dashboards, or API-driven reconfiguration without reloading, they push you toward NGINX Plus (the paid version).
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No Native Hot-Reloading While nginx -s reload is seamless and doesn’t drop connections, you still have to manage config files on disk. In the age of Kubernetes and dynamic service discovery, managing static text files can feel a little “2015” compared to tools like Traefik or Caddy that auto-discover services.
The Verdict
NGINX is the industry standard for a reason. While newer, “modern” proxies (like Envoy or Caddy) offer shiny features like automatic HTTPS or JSON configuration, NGINX remains the undefeated champion of raw performance and stability.
If you are running a production workload, putting NGINX in front of it isn’t just a good idea—it’s practically mandatory.
TL;DR: It’s robust, fast as lightning, and free. Learn the config syntax, and it will serve you forever.
Rating
4/5 - En Gin Inks…NGEEGINKS…
References
- NGINX Reverse Proxy Documentation: https://docs.nginx.com/nginx/admin-guide/web-server/reverse-proxy/
- CNCF: https://landscape.cncf.io/?item=orchestration-management–service-proxy–nginx