What’s the difference between the “mainline” and “stable” branches of nginx?

The difference between mainline and stable is explained here:

NGINX 1.6 and 1.7 Released

A graphical summary:

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Among other differences:

Note that stable does not mean more reliable or more bug-free. In
fact, the mainline is generally regarded as more reliable because we
port all bug fixes to it, and not just critical fixes as for the
stable branch. On the other hand, changes in the stable branch are
very unlikely to affect third-party modules. We don’t make the same
commitment concerning the mainline, where new features can affect the
operation of third-party modules.

Also:

We recommend that in general you deploy the NGINX mainline branch at
all times.

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