I will perform some benchmarks and compare it to nginx (and maybe apache) in a while.
By the time (2010, 2011) I was working at a company that needed a tracking server for tracking clicks and views in email. So I started to mod lighttpd and thought that I could make it faster. So in true "challenge accepted" spirit I started to write my own HTTP server. And since then I've made it better and better. It's not meant to be an nginx killer. It will always be very basic, fast and lightweight. It's great for projects where you need a web server included.
As I wrote in another comment I have used the code base myself in various projects such as:
* Tracking clicks, view, etc. for AlphaMail * The send-API server for AlphaMail * A DMARC report server (https://github.com/amail/comfirm-dmarc-report-server) * A REST server with redis as storage
I've never used it as a static web server in production yet. Mostly because of the lack of a reverse proxy and other great features that nginx has and shortfin not.