Mongrel is an open-source HTTP library and web server for Ruby web applications written by Zed A. Shaw. A distinguishing feature of Mongrel is that it uses plain HTTP, rather than FastCGI or SCGI, to ... More

Mongrel is an open-source HTTP library and web server for Ruby web applications written by Zed A. Shaw. A distinguishing feature of Mongrel is that it uses plain HTTP, rather than FastCGI or SCGI, to communicate with other servers which may be layered in front of it.It is widely believed to be faster and more stable than WEBrick, and easier to set up than Apache. One popular configuration is to run Apache 2.2 as a load balancer using mod_proxy_balancer in conjunction with several Mongrel instances, with each Mongrel instance running on a separate port. This is something that can be configured very easily using the mongrel_cluster management utility. Apache can divide the incoming requests among the available Mongrel processes, and, with careful configuration can even serve static content itself without having to delegate to Mongrel.For those who wish to avoid Apache altogether, it is possible to deploy a Mongrel cluster with an alternative web server, such as nginx or lighttpd, and a load balancer of some variety such as Pound or a hardware-based solution such as the F5 Networks BIG-IP  [edit]  Less