Web Server Selection for Rails

Question

My problem relates to having several different web applications (PHP & Rails) running on one server and deciding which server to use for Rails since it will be coexisting with a few PHP apps currently running on apache2 and there are a few choices out there when it comes to serving Rails apps.

We have a new Debian "Squeeze" server set up running Apache2. This server hosts PHP applications and we were asked to bring over a Ruby on Rails project and run it on this box.

The Rails app will not get too much traffic because it's a micro site for some of our business partners.

With that type of environment, what's the best app server choice for the Rails app knowing that Apache2 is already serving up PHP apps?

1) Apache2 with Phusion Passenger

2) Mongrel

3) Webrick

4) Something else?

Answer 1

Take a look at thin. It has native SSL support, its very lightweight and easy to setup (a line in your gemfile) and wouldn't interact with any other servers running on the host.

Answer 2

The Rails app will not get too much traffic because it's a micro site for some of our business partners.

Seems like Passenger would be a good fit as it's easy to configure to spawn/kill workers depending on the current traffic so you might save some resources most of the time.