I was actually talking to a developer awhile back, the conversation resulted in him actually updating the Ubuntu repository for Nginx's mod_wsgi to be updated to mod_wsgi 2.5 (as opposed to 1.0) and making it have choices of using Python 2.4 thru 2.6 via variants. But even then it was barely stable on Nginx 0.7.* and un-buildable on Nginx 0.8.*.
At the moment the most stable version of Nginx to run mod_wsgi with is the legacy 0.6.+, the original author ported it during the 0.5 release.
Performance and integration wise, Passenger excelled over trying to hack the mod_wsgi plugin into working. And as you said there are too many bugs to be effectively used in a production environment.
Once Passenger is compiled, it only requires two lines in the Nginx configuration to enable a Python WSGI application, and its no more heavy on resources than Nginx itself. You do of course have to restart Nginx (which in effect restarts Passenger) if you change or add a web application, but thats about the only hard part. Passenger even builds and installs Nginx for you, so not sure where the high maintenance is at.
You do of course have to restart Nginx (which in effect restarts Passenger) if you change or add a web application
Actually depending on your web framework you don't even have to do that. Werkzeug and others support code-reloading.
By the way I had a talk with a passenger developer yesterday and the WSGI support seems to be stabilizing. I was told that dreamhost is already using it in production - so it's undocumented but functional.
At the moment the most stable version of Nginx to run mod_wsgi with is the legacy 0.6.+, the original author ported it during the 0.5 release.
Performance and integration wise, Passenger excelled over trying to hack the mod_wsgi plugin into working. And as you said there are too many bugs to be effectively used in a production environment.
Once Passenger is compiled, it only requires two lines in the Nginx configuration to enable a Python WSGI application, and its no more heavy on resources than Nginx itself. You do of course have to restart Nginx (which in effect restarts Passenger) if you change or add a web application, but thats about the only hard part. Passenger even builds and installs Nginx for you, so not sure where the high maintenance is at.