# Mongrel Cluster vs. Apache-FCGI **URL:** \ **Category:** Radiant CMS\ **Created:** [April 8, 2007, 4:37am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mongrel-cluster-vs-apache-fcgi/91390 "2007-04-08T04:37:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ruben\_DSOrduz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/a88e4f/32.png) [@Ruben\_DSOrduz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Ruben_DSOrduz)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2007, 4:37am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mongrel-cluster-vs-apache-fcgi/91390/1 "2007-04-08T04:37:49Z")
Hi folks, I recently got my rails app to serve with a mongrel cluster with a balancer in front of it and Apache Proxying in front of that. That app used to run on rails-Apache-FCGI straight and I really can’t tell the difference performance-wise. Granted, the point of a cluster and balancer is for heavy loads not just one request, but there’s a bit diminishing returns going on with low traffic websites (\< 5K page views/week). Has any of you done any actual performance analysis on rails-mongrel cluster vs rails-apache-fcgi? Just curious. ---
**Author:** ![Ruben\_DSOrduz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/a88e4f/32.png) [@Ruben\_DSOrduz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Ruben_DSOrduz)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2007, 11:26am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mongrel-cluster-vs-apache-fcgi/91390/2 "2007-04-08T11:26:08Z")
Hello, I have been working with Radiant for the last several months, and I have noticed that when I am logged in to the admin interface, my session will timeout, and force me to re-login to the admin interface. I was wondering if there was a Radiant session variable that I could change to prevent this. I am mainly running Windows XP/Firefox 2.x connecting to a remote Radiant install. I have looked within the app tree to find a session timeout variable, with no sucess. Does this tie in to the basic Radiant cache timeout of 5 minutes, or is there another variable that I could manipulate? Thanks in advance, Kevin Bowen ---
**Author:** ![Ruben\_DSOrduz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/a88e4f/32.png) [@Ruben\_DSOrduz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Ruben_DSOrduz)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2007, 4:36pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mongrel-cluster-vs-apache-fcgi/91390/3 "2007-04-09T16:36:01Z")
Kevin Bowen wrote: > I have been working with Radiant for the last several months, and I have > noticed that when I am logged in to the admin interface, my session will > timeout, and force me to re-login to the admin interface. > I was wondering if there was a Radiant session variable that I could change > to prevent this. I’m not sure if there is or not. By default Radiant uses the standard Rails session stuff. So if there is a setting to configure this, it would be a Rails configuration option, not a Radiant. – John L. [http://wiseheartdesign.com](http://wiseheartdesign.com) ---
**Author:** ![Ruben\_DSOrduz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/a88e4f/32.png) [@Ruben\_DSOrduz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Ruben_DSOrduz)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2007, 5:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mongrel-cluster-vs-apache-fcgi/91390/4 "2007-04-09T17:39:08Z")
IIRC, [ruby-lang.org](http://ruby-lang.org) runs Apache 2.0.x with mod\_fcgid, quite happily on a pretty vanilla box. In the past, I’ve had memory-leak and zombie-process issues with FCGI (both lighttpd and Apache). Your experience may vary. I currently prefer proxy/balancing/Mongrel, but I also like Litespeed for its ease of use and nice admin interface. LSAPI performs very well in comparison to FCGI. Sean ---
**Author:** ![Ruben\_DSOrduz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/a88e4f/32.png) [@Ruben\_DSOrduz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Ruben_DSOrduz)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2007, 7:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mongrel-cluster-vs-apache-fcgi/91390/5 "2007-04-11T19:35:26Z")
I went from a FCGI on shared hosting to Nginx/Mongrel cluster on a VPS nad it was night and day. I don’t have any hard numbers, and I could have been more server resources than anything, but it was mind-blowingly faster. BJ Clark ---
**Author:** ![Ruben\_DSOrduz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/a88e4f/32.png) [@Ruben\_DSOrduz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Ruben_DSOrduz)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2007, 4:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mongrel-cluster-vs-apache-fcgi/91390/6 "2007-04-09T16:38:01Z")
Ruben D. Orduz wrote: > I recently got my rails app to serve with a mongrel cluster with a > balancer in front of it and Apache Proxying in front of that. That app > used to run on rails-Apache-FCGI straight and I really can’t tell the > difference performance-wise. Granted, the point of a cluster and > balancer is for heavy loads not just one request, but there’s a bit > diminishing returns going on with low traffic websites (\< 5K page > views/week). Has any of you done any actual performance analysis on > rails-mongrel cluster vs rails-apache-fcgi? Just curious. I’m not aware of any official performance testing for a rails-mongrel cluster vs rails-apache-fcgi. – John L. [http://wiseheartdesign.com](http://wiseheartdesign.com)