[pilif]

for me the reason to stay with an apache/mod_php backend was very bad experience I had with fastcgi back in the 2006/2007 area where I was using a lighttpd/fastcgi configuration.

I've seen crashes in lighty, crashes in fastcgi and subtle differences in behavior between fastcgi and mod_php.

FastCGI just wasn't a commonly used method of deployment back then, so there were for sure some bugs around that I didn't have time or interest to fix.

By now, there's PHP-FPM and fastcgi is much more common, so you could probably just hook php directly into nginx by now, but I didn't want to do experiments and I knew that apache worked, so that's what I used.

Just remember to turn off keep-alive in apache, btw.

[dhimes]

There was a bit of chatter recently about ill-configured nginx-fastcgi servers having a php vulnerability. Seems to be summed up here:

https://nealpoole.com/blog/2011/04/setting-up-php-fastcgi-an...

Thanks for the keep-alive tip. I missed that one.

EDIT: I see that the author of the post I linked replied below- also with the link.

[chopsueyar]

I use nginx with PHP-FPM on multiple sites and have been quite happy with the results.

[rmccue]

I'd say it's fairly stable, as (IIRC) WordPress.com is all run off nginx.