Nginx is special open source software that is compatible with UNIX systems. Designed as a web server to serve HTTP requests. Programmer Igor Sysoev worked on the project. Development began in 2002, software release - December 2004. The main goal set by Sysoev was to solve the C10k problem associated with the complexity of processing numerous requests (10,000 requests or more). The web server he created successfully coped with high loads, which caused its further popularity, despite the existence of a serious competitor in the face of the Apache web server. Official site of the nginx.org resource
What is a web server? A web server is specialized software that manages the processing of user requests (HTTP requests from network clients - web browsers) and generates HTML responses that client-side web browsers interpret into a human-readable web page format.