What is the recommended way to set up and run an OS X web server for a busy public website?
For my own outward-facing servers, I did everything from within the built-in server software itself, except managing virtual hosts, for which task I used VirtualHostX.

The best tutorial I know for configuring Mavericks for web server use is done by Charles Edge, at his site, Krypted. I followed this same process essentially, and thus far, I've seen no issues since deployment.