In my book bloat and performance are two entirely different things, and I think there is a strong correlation between code size and bloat. I agree about highly

In my book bloat and performance are two entirely different things, and I think there is a strong correlation between code size and bloat. I agree about highly optimized code being typically larger than the simpler alternative. Now nginx has interesting optimizations in some places (e.g. the http parser), but if you read the code, it's not like 90% of the code in nginx is there due to optimization. I'd like to add that from an OpenBSD perspective, excess optimizations would no doubt be considered bloat as well. One of the goals is that the code is clean, correct, and secure. I know for a fact that the developers are not going to carefully audit and maintain millions of lines of micro-optimizations. What these might get you is a tick in a hypothetical feature checklist ("performance"). But if another daemon does the job and performs well enough, then that feature is unneeded complexity, hence bloat. Not something you want to include in what aims to be the world's most secure general purpose operating system.