Atomicorp

In Plesk 12.1.21 it is now possible to run the vendor-supplied PHP as an FPM application served by apache! So it looks as though nginx is no longer required for php-fpm, out of the box.

Is this the best option to use by default?

Remember, I've not really investigated php-fpm much. All I know is that it is supposed to be a "better" and less resource-hungry way to run php compared to FastCGI, which is definitely a bit of a resource hog.

I had originally thought it worked with apache anyway, but when I discovered you could only select it with nginx in Plesk I thought I was wrong. So now that I see it can work with Apache I'm even more confused

Can someone please clarify things for me?

OK, I have learned a little more now, but I'm still a little confused.

I can see from various howtos that Apache 2.2 does seem to support php-fpm without apparent difficulty. (I thought there was some sort of issue with this for some reason, and that 2.4 was better supported)

I also see that *apparently* you need to compile two different versions of php if you want to be able to choose between FastCGI and php-fpm modes, the latter needing the --enable-fpm .configure option.

What's still not clear is whether it is practical to have different versions of php running via php-fpm, selected on a per-site basis.
And nobody has commented on whether php-fpm is the better option compared to just plain FastCGI mode.

Any info on this stuff would be appreciated.

In Plesk 12.1.23, running php-fpm with Apache is gone again. Maybe I imagined it.

On the plus side, php-fpm with Nginx is now possible for the plesk-supplied php 5.4, 5.5 and 5.6.