I know the first time that I tried to set up Passenger with Sinatra- I had some issues, despite following tutorials. I kept having to touch some file to get it to read the new files and wasn't really working as expected. PHP just seems to run after I apt-get the php stuff and drop the files in there.

But yes, generally Passenger does the trick.

I've consistently had problems deploying Rails apps. I can usually work through them, but it has never once been smooth.

It must be me, though, because every time I mention it, someone accuses me of being an idiot or trolling.

It used to be way complicated, but Passenger has made everything orders of magnitude easier. Tried it?