Why use NGINX with Meteor?

Question

As far as I understand, Meteor is a full-stack web server, meaning you don't need another web server such as Apache or NGINX to makes it work. But from reading the guidelines on deploying Meteor, it seems like they use NGINX to serve Meteor.

Why is this?

Edit: Will there any impact if I just use the Meteor without NGINX or apache? Is it significant?

Answer 1

Meteor is not a web server. Especially, it cannot terminate SSL/TLS. That's why you might want nginx running in front of meteor.

Answer 2

Nginx placed in front of the Node.js build of your Meteor app tends to double the throughput of serving static assets (images, media files etc.) and reduce latency - see these benchmarks by @Stephan at Do I really need nginx with my Meteor/Node.JS app?

See also the recommended nginx configuration for Meteor .