Unicorn vs Passenger Standalone behind nginx [clos

Question

I'm trying to decide between Unicorn and Phusion Passenger Standalone (formerly Phusion Passenger Lite). I want to host multiple apps on my server. I have nginx running and listening to port 80. I need a webapp server that I can proxy requests to based on a request servername and/or the lack of an existing static directory/file. I am not interested in compiling Passenger as part of nginx (the standard install) because my model allows for more flexibility (like running different versions of Ruby with different apps).

I have read a lot about Unicorn and it fits my model well but I see Passenger Standalone can essentially do the same thing. Even though there are tons of docs out there for standard Passenger installs, there don't seem to many for Passenger Standalone. Even the official docs are bare.

Can someone please compare and contrast these two Ruby webapp servers and give me the pros and cons of each. Keep in mind they will only be used for "fast clients."

Thank you.

Answer 1

If you already have nginx set up, use Unicorn. If not, use Passenger Standalone, which comes with its own builtin nginx. Perhaps this also shapes your approach to the docs. There's not much point to separately documenting what is essentially two very well documented products, bundled together.

You'll hear good things about both. If you're in a rush, pick one and go. Otherwise, try both and decide based on your own experience of them.