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How does Node.js handle TLS/SSL and its performance cost?

Senior NodeJS
Quick Answer Node.js TLS uses OpenSSL under the hood. TLS handshakes are CPU-intensive รขโ‚ฌโ€ the first connection requires key exchange and certificate verification. Subsequent connections on the same keep-alive TCP connection reuse the TLS session, avoiding re-handshake. In production, terminate TLS at nginx or a load balancer to offload crypto work from Node.js.

Answer

TLS operations are CPU-intensive. Node offloads crypto to worker threads. Performance impacted by cipher suites, key sizes, and session reuse.
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