ReleaseRun Badges for Nginx

Why Use Nginx Health Badges?

Nginx sits in front of everything, and an unpatched reverse proxy is a single point of compromise. A health badge in your infrastructure docs shows whether your Nginx version is still receiving security patches, without digging through the changelog.

ReleaseRun badges go beyond Shields.io. Where Shields.io shows a version number, our badges show security posture: CVE counts, EOL countdowns, and a composite health grade based on freshness (35%), security (35%), and support status (30%).

Nginx Release History & EOL Timeline

Nginx maintains two parallel release branches: the mainline branch (odd minor versions like 1.27) which receives new features and bug fixes, and the stable branch (even minor versions like 1.26) which only receives critical bug fixes. A new stable branch is forked from mainline roughly once per year.

• Nginx 1.27 – current mainline branch, started April 2024. Receives all new features, optimizations, and security patches. Recommended for those who want the latest capabilities.
• Nginx 1.26 – current stable branch, released April 2024. Receives only critical fixes. Recommended for production environments that prioritize stability over features.
• Nginx 1.25 – previous mainline, superseded by 1.27. No longer updated. Users should move to 1.27 mainline or 1.26 stable.
• Nginx 1.24 – previous stable branch, released April 2023. Superseded by 1.26. While not formally “end-of-life” in the traditional sense, it no longer receives patches.
• Nginx 1.22 – stable branch from 2022. No longer maintained. Running this version means missing over two years of security fixes.

Nginx does not publish formal EOL dates the way languages like Python or Java do. Instead, older branches simply stop receiving updates when a new stable branch is released. This makes health badges especially valuable: the badge tracks patch activity and flags versions that have gone silent.

Badge Customization Examples

ReleaseRun offers four badge types for Nginx. Each serves a different monitoring purpose:

• Health badge – composite A-F grade reflecting overall risk. Embed: ![Nginx Health](https://img.releaserun.com/badge/health/nginx.svg)
• EOL badge – end-of-life or maintenance status. Embed: ![Nginx EOL](https://img.releaserun.com/badge/eol/nginx.svg)
• Version badge – latest stable version number. Embed: ![Nginx Version](https://img.releaserun.com/badge/v/nginx.svg)
• CVE badge – known vulnerability count. Embed: ![Nginx CVE](https://img.releaserun.com/badge/cve/nginx.svg)

Add ?style=flat-square or ?style=for-the-badge to any URL for alternative rendering. The embed builder above lets you preview all styles before copying.

Common Use Cases

• DevOps teams: Embed badges in runbooks or Grafana dashboards to track Nginx versions across ingress controllers, load balancers, and reverse proxies. When a CVE drops for your Nginx version, the badge turns red before your scanner does.
• Kubernetes operators: The NGINX Ingress Controller bundles a specific Nginx build. Add version badges to your ingress controller documentation so you can track the health of both the controller and the underlying Nginx binary.
• Security teams: Nginx CVEs often have high severity scores because they affect traffic handling at the edge. A CVE badge on your infrastructure wiki provides continuous monitoring without waiting for the next scheduled vulnerability scan.
• Hosting providers: Show customers which Nginx version is running on their tier and whether it is still in the active support window. Transparency builds trust and reduces support tickets when upgrades are needed.

Related ReleaseRun Tools

Nginx badges are part of a broader toolkit for securing your web infrastructure:

• Tech Stack Health Scorecard – get a holistic health grade across your entire infrastructure, including Nginx, the OS, and backend services.
• Security Header Analyzer – check whether your Nginx configuration is sending the right security headers (HSTS, CSP, X-Frame-Options).
• SSL Certificate Checker – verify your TLS configuration, certificate expiry dates, and protocol support.
• CVE Dashboard – monitor known vulnerabilities across all your tracked products including Nginx and OpenSSL.
• Badge Generator – create custom health badges for any product in the ReleaseRun database.

What Makes These Different

Every badge pulls live data from the endoflife.date API and the NIST National Vulnerability Database. Data refreshes every 6 hours. Badges are edge-cached for 5 minutes, fast enough for monitoring dashboards, infrastructure wikis, and documentation sites.