# Phusion Passenger thoughts? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [August 23, 2008, 11:48pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/phusion-passenger-thoughts/146677 "2008-08-23T23:48:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![tikaro](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/2acd7d/32.png) [@tikaro](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tikaro)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2008, 11:48pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/phusion-passenger-thoughts/146677/1 "2008-08-23T23:48:04Z")
I know there was another discussion about this, but it was a bit old and now that it has been out for a little while…what do people think about Passenger? I’ve been using it a little bit at work in a very non-intensive setting and I like it - mostly for the ease of deployment. Doesn’t seem to preform as well as the standard Apache + Mongrel setup in my very non-scientific opinion. Has anyone used it in a production setting and how does it preform for you? Also - did you use their “Enterprise Edition” of Ruby? John ---
**Author:** ![tikaro](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/2acd7d/32.png) [@tikaro](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tikaro)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 5:37am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/phusion-passenger-thoughts/146677/2 "2008-08-24T05:37:13Z")
I just tried it out yesterday. It was ridiculously simple when using the gem version, (.deb package didn’t work so well). The only problem I had was that apache worker was required to run it and I need apache prefork to run on that same box for my cms, so I had to go back to a thin cluster. It seemed pretty fast using ruby EE and took significantly less memory than thin + apache proxy. ---
**Author:** ![tikaro](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/2acd7d/32.png) [@tikaro](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tikaro)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 5:47am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/phusion-passenger-thoughts/146677/3 "2008-08-24T05:47:44Z")
to me, it’s completely amazing! I have a ps on dreamhost and mod\_rails completely changed the performances of the applications… I’ve recently deployed [speakcorp.com](http://speakcorp.com) to a dedicated server (!) on hostgator and m\_r was easy and quick to install… overall great! On 8/23/08, John Y. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Has anyone used it in a production setting and how does it preform for > you? Also - did you use their “Enterprise Edition” of Ruby? > > John > > > – Emanuele T. 4955 Narragansett Avenue San Diego CA 92107 ---
**Author:** ![tikaro](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/2acd7d/32.png) [@tikaro](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tikaro)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 11:16am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/phusion-passenger-thoughts/146677/4 "2008-08-24T11:16:56Z")
On Aug 24, 5:36 am, “Joe K” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > I just tried it out yesterday. It was ridiculously simple when using the gem > version, (.deb package didn’t work so well). The only problem I had was that > apache worker was required to run it and I need apache prefork to run on > that same box for my cms, so I had to go back to a thin cluster. Hi guys, I’m a Phusion Passenger developer. I’m not sure where you got the idea that it requires the worker MPM. Phusion Passenger officially supports both the worker _and_ the prefork MPM. In fact, most people use the prefork MPM, including myself (on my development machine, at least). ---
**Author:** ![tikaro](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/2acd7d/32.png) [@tikaro](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tikaro)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 11:32am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/phusion-passenger-thoughts/146677/5 "2008-08-24T11:32:45Z")
I swear by it. I use is on personal production environments and all projects at work. I use ruby enterprise edition too. Two main reasons of using it is ease of use and I can run my wordpress (php) blogs along side. Configuring other servers with other runners etc is just too much of a waste of time and a headache. Apahche + mod\_rails is the fastest and easiest way to deploy rails apps, in a flexable and pleasureble manner. Regards Andrew ---
**Author:** ![tikaro](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/2acd7d/32.png) [@tikaro](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tikaro)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 11:20am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/phusion-passenger-thoughts/146677/6 "2008-08-24T11:20:27Z")
On Aug 23, 11:47 pm, John Y. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > I know there was another discussion about this, but it was a bit old > and now that it has been out for a little while…what do people think > aboutPassenger? > > I’ve been using it a little bit at work in a very non-intensive > setting and I like it - mostly for the ease of deployment. Doesn’t > seem to preform as well as the standard Apache + Mongrel setup in my > very non-scientific opinion. There are a bunch of benchmarks, including independent ones, which show that Phusion Passenger is faster than Apache + Mongrel. See [Support](http://www.modrails.com/documentation.html), “How’s performance?” There are also benchmarks for Ruby Enterprise Edition which shows that Phusion Passenger + Ruby Enterprise Edition can be faster than Thin behind Nginx: [Performance and memory usage comparisons — Ruby Enterprise Edition](http://www.rubyenterpriseedition.com/comparisons.html) The benchmark results are completely open and public, so anybody can verify our claims. The only gotcha is that Phusion Passenger starts your application _after_ Apache has started, not before Apache has started (as is the case with Mongrel). This means that the first request will be a bit slower. If you counted the startup time of the first request, then your benchmark results will not be correct. [wiki.rubyonrails.org](http://wiki.rubyonrails.org) has been running on Phusion Passenger and Ruby Enterprise Edition for a while now, and it’s been great so far. ---
**Author:** ![tikaro](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/2acd7d/32.png) [@tikaro](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tikaro)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 7:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/phusion-passenger-thoughts/146677/7 "2008-08-24T19:11:18Z")
> I also have use it on my development machine as well as in production. I think that I will be moving towards it for all future development also. When I have some spare time, I think that I’ll setup a machine and run some tests. But yes, many thanks to the Phusion guys, it is a pretty great product. ---
**Author:** ![tikaro](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/2acd7d/32.png) [@tikaro](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tikaro)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 1:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/phusion-passenger-thoughts/146677/8 "2008-08-24T13:40:56Z")
I also have use it on my development machine as well as in production. Easy to configure, easy to deploy, responsive. I would recommend people use it as their default method of deployment from now on. The fact that it also supports all Rack-based frameworks as well means even my merb applications can be run on it. Thanks Hongli for the incredible free open-source product. ---
**Author:** ![tikaro](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/2acd7d/32.png) [@tikaro](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tikaro)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2008, 7:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/phusion-passenger-thoughts/146677/9 "2008-08-25T19:21:18Z")
Thanks for your reply. I can’t remember the exact sequence of events, but I think that when I installed the .deb package it switched me to worker (and gave me an error when I tried to load the module with prefork). I’m guessing that when I finally installed the gem version, I must have built it against the worker headers, since that’s what I had set up from the deb package. That’s probably why it didn’t load on the second shot. I will give it another try. Anyway, I guess it didn’t shine through my first post, but I really do appreciate passenger and ruby ee and I was pretty bummed when I thought it wouldn’t work with my config. Passenger is a huge leap toward rails being included as standard equipment on shared hosting plans.