Hiawatha

Hiawatha

Hiawatha is an open source web server that focuses on security and speed. It is designed to be easy to use, secure out of the box, and lightweight.
Hiawatha image
opensource security performance

Hiawatha: Open Source Web Server for Security and Speed

Hiawatha is an open source web server that focuses on security and speed. It is designed to be easy to use, secure out of the box, and lightweight.

What is Hiawatha?

Hiawatha is an open source web server software that emphasizes security, speed, and ease of use. Some key features of Hiawatha include:

  • Lightweight - Hiawatha uses minimal system resources while still serving thousands of simultaneous connections.
  • Secure - Hiawatha has strong security features built-in like URL filtering, access restriction, and SSL/TLS support.
  • Fast - Optimization for speed makes Hiawatha one of the fastest web servers available.
  • Easy configuration - The configuration file uses straightforward syntax, making Hiawatha simple to set up.
  • Modular extensions - Hiawatha supports extensions and plugins to add extra functionality.
  • Open source - As free software, Hiawatha is transparent, customizable and community-supported.

In summary, Hiawatha excels as a lightweight, secure, and speedy open source web server. Its simplicity and customizability using extensions make it suitable for small to medium websites.

Hiawatha Features

Features

  1. Lightweight and fast
  2. Built-in security features like URL blacklist, IP banning, and hotlink protection
  3. Supports HTTP/2, IPv6, and TLS encryption
  4. Minimal memory footprint
  5. WebDAV support
  6. CGI, FastCGI, and SCGI support
  7. Load balancing and reverse proxy capabilities
  8. Simple configuration with htpasswd authentication

Pricing

  • Open Source

Pros

Very fast and lightweight

Secure out of the box

Easy to install and configure

Open source with active development

Supports latest web standards and protocols

Cons

Lacks some advanced features of larger web servers

Limited plugin ecosystem compared to Apache/Nginx

Documentation could be more extensive

Not as widely used as alternatives


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