How does Nginx work with PM2 and Node.js?
Nginx receives internet traffic on port 80/443, handles SSL and static files, then proxies API requests to Node.js on port 3000. PM2 keeps the Node.js process running, restarts on crash, and manages multiple instances. Nginx + PM2 + Node.js is the standard production stack.
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More FAQs in What Is Nginx and Why Use It with Node.js Web Server and Reverse Proxy Guide
Nginx is a web server and reverse proxy. It serves static files, handles SSL/TLS termination, load balances across multiple app instances, compresses responses, caches content, rate limits requests, and proxies WebSocket connections. It is the most popular web server on the internet.
Nginx handles port management (80/443 while Node uses 3000), SSL termination (Nginx handles HTTPS, Node handles HTTP), static file serving (Nginx is faster), load balancing, gzip compression, caching, rate limiting, and WebSocket proxying for Socket.io.
Nginx is much faster for static files because it's written in C with an event-driven model, using ~2 KB memory per connection. Node.js uses ~1 MB per connection and is single-threaded, making it inefficient for static file serving.
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