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Why did Netflix use NGINX and FreeBSD to build their own CDN? by Gleb Smirnoff

NGINX · 40K views · 2015-02-26 · 45:42

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Overview

Gleb Smirnoff explains why Netflix built its own CDN on FreeBSD and NGINX, and how Netflix and NGINX Inc. collaborate on the software. It is a conference talk about open-source choices for video delivery.

On Hacker News

Cited in FreeBSD vs Linux debates as the source for why Netflix chose FreeBSD, with commenters reading the GPL as the main factor.

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2016–2021

Topics

Networking & internet infrastructureLinux & open-source ecosystemsCloud, DevOps & reliability
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What people said

nix23 · 2021-02 · Reference

>I cannot help being a bit sad that contribution like this will only benefit the few people that use FreeBSD Same could be said the other way around, the thing is Linux can implement it and even take the code, the other way is rather difficult....so much for freedom. And not sure what you mean with "few" people, the few Playstation 3/4/5 users? Juniper? OpnSense/Pfsense installations? Or the few Truenas/Freenas users? >Or not something else enough? [VIDEO]

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jaekash · 2020-07 · Reference

This presentation also makes no indication that FreeBSD was chosen because it had better performance than Linux: [VIDEO] Seems GPL already ruled Linux out.

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jaekash · 2020-07 · Reference

Both of these things suggest they had many other reasons to chose FreeBSD, and neither suggests FreeBSD was faster than Linux: - [LINK] - [VIDEO] Seems GPL was a problem for them. EDIT: another source suggesting GPL avoidance was the primary reason for choosing FreeBSD over Linux: [LINK] - and the presenter also says that the performance comparisons they have done between Linux and FreeBSD is not exactly fair because they did not do all the engineering work on Linux that they did on FreeBSD.

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Sources

Video by NGINX, played through YouTube.

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