Questions[mod-php](server)

I'm trying out mod_spdy and I've run into a problem - it seems to be incompatible with AJAX requests and mod_php as in this: https://www.modspdy.com/blog/2012/04/15/using-mod_spdy-with-php/

The solution seems to be to run php scripts through fastCGI. Now my first question is, why is that? Is there maybe some sort of a workaround? Is this incompatibility just temporary? I would not want to switch the whole production server to fastCGI just because of this. What would be the advantages/disadvantages of that?

Also, I do not understand why it needs https. Why can't a simple, let's say static, website gain speed from mod_spdy? I'm looking for plain speculation here - do you think mod_spdy will be sometime available without the mod_ssl requirement, or is the architecture so different that I should not expect it at any time?

I hope I'm expressing my thoughts clearly. Thank you for your thoughts.

When apache forks a process for mod-php, how long does it stay alive? Does the process die as soon as the response is sent, or will it stay alive until the browser receives the full response?

I'm running Drupal and trying to figure out the best stack to serve it. Apache + mod_php or Nginx + PHP-FPM

I used ApacheBench (ab) and Siege to test both setups and I'm seeing Apache performing better. This surprises me a little bit since I've heard a lot of good things about Nginx + PHP-FPM. My current Nginx setup is something that is a bit out of the box, and the same goes for PHP-FPM

What optimizations I can make to speed up the Nginx + PHP-FPM combo over Apache and mo_php ? In my tests using ab, Apache is outperforming Nginx significantly (higher requets/second and finishing tests much faster)

I've googled around a bit, but since I've never using Nginx, PHP-FPM or FastCGI, I don't exactly know where to start

PHP v5.2.13, Drupal v6, latest PHP-FPM and Nginx compiled from source. Apache v2.0.63

ApacheBench Nginx + PHP-FPM

Server Software:        nginx/0.7.67
Server Hostname:        test2.com
Server Port:            80

Concurrency Level:      25
---> Time taken for tests:   158.510008 seconds
Complete requests:      1000
Failed requests:        0
Write errors:           0
---> Requests per second:    6.31 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request:       3962.750 [ms] (mean)
Time per request:       158.510 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate:          181.38 [Kbytes/sec] received

ApacheBench Apache using mod_php

Server Software:        Apache/2.0.63
Server Hostname:        test1.com
Server Port:            80

Concurrency Level:      25
--> Time taken for tests:   63.556663 seconds
Complete requests:      1000
Failed requests:        0
Write errors:           0
--> Requests per second:    15.73 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request:       1588.917 [ms] (mean)
Time per request:       63.557 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate:          103.94 [Kbytes/sec] received

I have been investigating the differences between Apache and Nginx recently and am confused about which I should choose.

I have done some searching but there is no definitive comparison between the two and I was wondering if someone here could give their views on the differences between the two.

My current knowledge allows me to understand that mod_php is faster and more secure than fastcgi however Apache is much worse when it comes to simultaneous connections and memory consumption.

My site is using a lot of long polling but has a non AJAX web base (i.e. Apache with long polling over the top).

My original solution to Apaches memory problems were to send the long polling through node.js and then get node.js to access Apache every 2 secs in which case Apache would not have an open connection but instead node.js would. I have come to the realisation this might not be good enough and am looking at different solutions. I am still interested as to whether my original idea would have worked.

So which is better for the modern web? Apache or Nginx?

Update: All the suggestions given were good and valid. I have gone with the original second idea which is to use a full Nginx server. I am satisfied that being a dedicated server I could not suffer security issues from fastcgi and since my long polling scripts need to be written in PHP I require a server that can deal with high load simultaneous connections and Apache just cannot do that no matter how much I change the structure it will still be memory hungry.

I have marked Martin F's answer since he gave such a clear and complete answer to my questions points that I feel he deserves the mark, however, all three answers were good and valid and will most definately look into using reverse proxy for another site I own since I just found something very very very kool that Nginx can do in proxying.

Thanks,

It was recently suggested to me that I use FastCGI with PHP. Now I went to the FastCGI page and read it but I don't really understand what the advantages are.