Types of Caching

You read about what nginx caching is and what its advantages were before this page.On this page, you will read about types of caching in Nginx. Nginx offers various types of caching to improve the performance of web applications and websites. Here is a comprehensive list of caching types in Nginx:

Proxy caching in Nginx is a feature that allows Nginx to store and serve cached copies of responses from upstream servers (usually web application servers or other proxy servers). Caches responses from upstream web servers (e.g., application servers) so that Nginx can serve them directly without forwarding requests to the upstream servers again. It is commonly used for caching both static and dynamic content.

Caches static files such as images, stylesheets, JavaScript files, and other assets to reduce the load on the server and serve them quickly.

Nginx FastCGI Cache on NGINX reduces server response time. Caches responses generated by FastCGI applications (e.g., PHP, Python) when Nginx acts as a reverse proxy for these applications. Specifies the directory where FastCGI cache files will be stored using the "fastcgi_cache_path" directive.

Micro-caching is an effective method for accelerating the delivery of dynamic, non personalized content by caching it for very short periods of time.

Sessions in SSL/TLS have been around since SSL v2. They allow multiple connections to use the same key data to calculate encryption keys for the connection instead of performing a full negotiation to determined the encryption keys. Caches SSL session parameters to reduce the computational overhead of SSL/TLS handshakes, especially for frequently visited HTTPS sites.

Nginx can be configured to use Memcached or Redis as caching backends. This allows for more advanced and distributed caching strategies, often used in high-traffic or load-balanced environments.

LevelDB is a key-value store that Nginx can use as a caching backend, providing a different storage mechanism for cache items.

Caches the responses sent by Nginx itself, primarily used when Nginx is acting as a reverse proxy for other web servers.

It enables administrators to selectively invalidate cached items based on specific URLs or patterns.The "ngx_cache_purge module" is a third-party module that allows manual cache purging.

In summary, These various types of caching mechanisms in Nginx can be used to optimize different aspects of web application performance, improve resource utilization, and enhance user experience. The choice of caching type depends on the specific requirements of your web infrastructure.