Acceptable web site performance generally requires the ability to serve several users concurrently.
To avoid corrupting in-memory data structures, C Python employs a Global Interpreter Lock (GIL), so that only one thread in a multi-threaded program can actually be executing Python code at any given time. Thus Python will let you create as many threads as you want in a given process; however, only one thread can run code at a time, as though your threads were confined to a single processor.
A typical web application receives and parses the user's request, then makes a corresponding request to the database behind it; while that thread is waiting for a response from the database, the GIL is available for any other threads that need to run Python code. Finally the database answers; the waiting thread reacquires the GIL; and, in a quick blaze of CPU activity, the data is turned into an attractive web page, and the response is sent winging its way back to the user.
Thus threads can sometimes at least perform decently. Nevertheless, multiple processes are the more general way to scale. This is because, as a service gets bigger, additional processes can be brought up on additional machines, rather than being confined to a single machine. Threads, no matter their other merits, cannot do that! There are two general approaches to running a Python web application inside of a collector of identical worker processes:
mod_wsgi module to
host a separate Python interpreter in every Apache worker process.