As written in another comment, nginx + php5-fpm is a great combo, no need for Apache at all. I run both Drupal and WordPress (the latter against my will :-P ) i

As written in another comment, nginx + php5-fpm is a great combo, no need for Apache at all. I run both Drupal and WordPress (the latter against my will :-P ) in such a setup. I think the only reason people use nginx -> Apache mod_php is because there's a lot of documentation and knowledge about Apache. nginx requires a little bit different mental model how HTTP requests are served but it's worth it. EDIT: You can think of PHP5-FPM as Apache+mod_php but only serving PHP requests. So nginx handles static files and URL magic and when there's request for PHP, it passes it to PHP5-FPM, just like it would pass it to Apache+mod_php. This is oversimplifed but it's kind of like that.