Nginx (reverse proxy) + LAMP vs nginx only (LEMP)

As I am planning to start hosting on DigitalOcean soon, I wanted to use ServerPilot to help me get the basics on the VPS then I add vBulletin myself like I do on any other host. I found out that ServerPilot uses a LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP-fpm) and adds a layer of Nginx on the top.

That’s a new configuration I never really heard about so I was really wondering what’s better, Nginx over Apache, or just Nginx. Since I am going to use WordPress and vBulletin both have static, and dynamic content so which option should one go with?

I know there is an article here on DigitalOcean that compares Apache to Nginx but it basically compares Apache w/mod_php to Nginx with PHP-fpm which is not really fare. Also nginx as a front layer makes the system behave differently so I wanted someone to explain to me if using nginx alone is better than reverse proxy, and why (along with php-fpm in both cases of course)