If you are a server administrator and want to use cPanel & WHM to manage your web server. The option to experiment with NGINX as the web server software instead of Apache is now available. cPanel developers have had a lot of requests for NGINX support over the years but the control panel has been primarily an Apache thing.
Cpanel developers have announced that web server administrators can now deploy Cpanel/WHM with NGINX as the underlying web server software if they know what they are doing. The developers also made it clear you should have a rollback plan in case everything blows up. cPanel is stating that some features will NOT work with NGINX. Example: mod_security, those .htaccess files, and mailman.
When Cpanel & WHM administrators opt for NGINX. The Apache web server software is not uninstalled but simply moved to a different port (not port 80) and is moved back to the main HTTP ports if NGINX is uninstalled. Cpanel developers have no timetable for when NGINX will be supported in a production environment. For now NGINX support is experimental. Cpanel and WHM will require a manual reload of NGINX for the changes made inside the control panel to work.
How to experiment with NGINX
Make sure you are running the latest version of Cpanel/WHM. How to enable NGINX support on Cpanel & WHM:
Run the following command to enable NGINX support:
yum install ea4-experimental
Run the following command to install NGINX on CentOS/RHEL:
yum install ea-nginx