Originally Posted by borked

But does nginx+php run faster than Apache with PHP is the question? On your setup perhaps, but maybe because you have too many unnecessary apache modules loaded?

I run an API server that is heavily PHP dependent and has 30million+ requests daily. Load was a bit nuts at one point early last year (load 5ish) and it was only serving around 10mill around then, so I gave nginx+php a try. Configured it to the minimum but it thrashed around like hell, sending load way high. Continuously. The reason being the php-cgi spawing was costing too much.

So, I stripped apache down, tweaked all the settings, now server load is a VERY steady 0.05 with 30mill+ hits.

So, I still hold that apache wins hands down.

Well, for high traffic sites that is... your wp may well run smooth and quick, but wait till it gets enough traffic to start spawning children