Hi. I notice that nginx with just the location rules and usual directives results in mind-blowing performance. Apache Bench test shows "115,000 requests per second" can be handled.

However, when I add a simple rule:

if ($request_method !~ ^(GET|HEAD|POST)$ ) {
return 444;
}

Which I think is important from a point of view of getting rid of so much junk that hits any modern server, the requests per second fall to "1,200" !!!

Is there any way around this? I would, if possible, prefer that my main web server be able to handle such basic stuff.

Welcome any thoughts. Thanks!