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Freenginx is a new fork of Nginx, the open-source web server that powers one-third of all websites. Will this spin-off replace the established market leader, and why should you care about it?
What Is Nginx?Nginx (pronounced "engine x") is a free, open-source web server that launched in 2004. It is easily configurable and has also found a niche as a proxy server.
Nginx's popularity has slowly grown, surpassing its longstanding open-source competitor, Apache, and Microsoft's proprietary IIS in 2019, according to Netcraft.
netcraft""> Credit: netcraft What Is Freenginx?On February 14, ex-Nginx developer, Maxim Dounin, announced Freenginx, a fork of Nginx. Maxim took this action in protest at decisions made by the company that currently owns Nginx, F5. He wrote:
[I] no longer see nginx as a free and open source project developed and maintained for the public good.
The first version of Freenginx (1.25.4) launched on 20 Feb 2024, with a handful of bug fixes to address flaws relating to memory access. Such flaws are common security holes that can allow malicious actors to attack websites.
Is Freenginx Better Than Nginx and Should I Start Using It?After just one revision, Freenginx is hardly any different from its ancestor. This is the way with all forks; as time continues, a fork will slowly diverge from its original software, as the projects follow different paths.
Freenginx's stated aim is to focus more on security-related improvements, and to be developer-led rather than driven by top-down decisions from a management level.
As the offshoot matures, any migration will be less of a like-for-like replacement. So now is the time to change if you like the sound of Freenginx’s direction, or if you want to support the developer’s aims.
But, equally, there is no great need to change horses at this stage in the race. Nginx is not going anywhere, and will always have the right to fold Freenginx’s changes into its codebase anyway.
What Other Web Servers Are Available? Shutterstock"">Apache is still the main alternative to Nginx, especially in open-source ecosystems where it’s installed by default or easy to set up. These two web servers currently dominate market share, and experience with either is valuable.
But this doesn't tell the full story. Market share statistics from different sources disagree, and the tide can change rapidly if a company responsible for hosting a great number of sites makes a change.
Smaller players include OpenResty—another Nginx variant with a niche hosting Lua applications—and Google's GWS. The latter is used exclusively by Google, but has a visible market share due to the number of sites Google produces.
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