Tinyproxy is a lightweight HTTP and HTTPS proxy daemon designed for environments where low resource consumption is important. It provides the essential capabilities of a web proxy without the overhead associated with larger caching and traffic-management systems.
The software is particularly suited to small networks, embedded systems, network appliances and machines with limited memory. It can relay client requests to remote servers and buffer responses when the server and client operate at different speeds.
Despite its compact design, Tinyproxy offers considerable flexibility. Administrators can control who may use the proxy, determine how requests are forwarded and apply filtering rules. It supports conventional forward proxy configurations as well as transparent and reverse proxy operation.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Small memory footprint and modest processor requirements.
- HTTP forward proxying – relays requests and responses between clients and web servers.
- HTTPS tunnelling – forwards encrypted connections using the CONNECT method without decrypting their contents.
- HTTP Basic authentication – restricts proxy access to users with valid credentials.
- IP-based access controls – permits or denies connections from specified clients and networks.
- Domain and URL filtering – applies configurable allowlists or blocklists using pattern matching.
- Transparent proxy operation – supports redirected HTTP traffic without requiring explicit client proxy configuration.
- Reverse proxy functionality – forwards requests to configured backend web servers.
- Upstream proxy support – routes connections through HTTP, SOCKS4 or SOCKS5 proxies.
- Selective upstream routing – applies different forwarding rules to specified hosts and domains.
- HTTP header controls – allows selected headers to be suppressed or added to outgoing HTTP requests.
- Remote monitoring – exposes proxy usage statistics through a configurable statistics interface.
- Configurable connection limits, timeouts and server-load controls.
- Multiple listening interfaces and support for IPv6 connections.
- Cross-platform support – runs on Linux and macOS.
Website: tinyproxy.github.io
Support:
Developer: Robert James Kaes and contributors
License: GNU General Public License v2.0
Tinyproxy is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Web Delivery Tools | |
|---|---|
| Vinyl HTTP Cache | Web accelerator written with performance and flexibility in mind |
| Traffic Server | HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2.0 compliant caching proxy server |
| Squid | High-performance proxy caching server and web cache daemon |
| Tinyproxy | Lightweight web proxy daemon |
| Privoxy | Non-caching Web proxy with advanced filtering capabilities |
| Polipo | Caching HTTP proxy which has modest resource needs |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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