This isn't really a performance question anymore
A decade ago, Nginx's event-driven architecture gave it a clear edge handling high concurrent connections, and Apache's process/thread model struggled under load. That gap has mostly closed. Apache's event MPM handles concurrency well now, and for the traffic levels most business applications see, both will perform fine. Picking based on raw performance benchmarks is usually solving a problem you don't have.
Where the real differences still matter
The practical differences that actually affect a decision:
- Configuration style: Nginx config is declarative and predictable; Apache's .htaccess-per-directory model is flexible but can hide behavior in ways that surprise you later
- Reverse proxy and static file serving: Nginx is the more common default for this, and it shows in how much documentation and tooling assumes it
- Legacy application requirements: some older PHP applications and CMSs were built and documented against Apache's .htaccess behavior specifically
- Module ecosystem: Apache's dynamic module loading is more flexible if you need something unusual; Nginx's modules are compiled in, which is more predictable but less pluggable after the fact
A reasonable default
For a new setup with no legacy constraint, Nginx as a reverse proxy in front of your application, whether that's a Node process, a Python app, or a static site, is the more common and better-documented pattern today. If you're running an older CMS or application that assumes Apache and .htaccess-based configuration, fighting that assumption usually costs more than it saves.
The two aren't mutually exclusive either. A common, solid pattern is Nginx as the public-facing reverse proxy and TLS terminator, with Apache or an application server behind it for specific legacy needs.
What actually breaks in production
In practice, more hosting problems come from TLS certificates expiring, misconfigured reverse proxy timeouts, and deploy pipelines that require someone to SSH in and restart something by hand, than from the web server choice itself. That's the part worth getting right regardless of which server you pick: clean configuration, automated certificate renewal, and a deploy path that doesn't depend on one person remembering the steps.