darkhttpd is a simple, single-threaded, static content web server.
It only serves static content.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Simple to set up:
- Single binary, no other files, no installation needed.
- Standalone, doesn’t need inetd or ucspi-tcp.
- No messing around with config files – all you have to specify is the www root.
- Written in C – efficient and portable.
- Small memory footprint.
- Event loop, single threaded – no fork() or pthreads.
- Generates directory listings.
- Supports HTTP GET and HEAD requests.
- Supports Range / partial content. (try streaming music files or resuming a download)
- Supports If-Modified-Since.
- Supports Keep-Alive connections.
- Supports IPv6.
- Can serve 301 redirects based on Host header.
- Uses sendfile() on FreeBSD, Solaris and Linux.
- Can use acceptfilter on FreeBSD.
- Security:
- Can log accesses, including Referer and User-Agent.
- Can chroot.
- Can drop privileges.
- Impervious to /../ sniffing.
- Times out idle connections.
- Drops overly long requests.
Website: github.com/emikulic/darkhttpd
Support:
Developer: Emil Mikulic
License: ISC License
darkhttpd is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Static Web Servers | |
|---|---|
| miniserve | CLI tool to serve files and dirs over HTTP |
| serve | Static file serving and directory listing |
| binserve | Fast production-ready static web server |
| Superstatic | Enhanced static web server |
| darkhttpd | A simple web server written in C; only serves static content |
| simple-http-server | Simple static file server written in Rust |
| Static Web Server | High-performance and asynchronous web server |
| webfs | Simple http server for mostly static content. |
| quark | Small and simple HTTP GET/HEAD-only web server for static content |
| Websitino | Lightweight static file server for local development |
| static-file-server | Tiny, simple static file server |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
Explore our comprehensive directory of recommended free and open source software. Our carefully curated collection spans every major software category.This directory is part of our ongoing series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. It features hundreds of detailed reviews, along with open source alternatives to proprietary solutions from major corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. You’ll also find interesting projects to try, hardware coverage, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Discovered a useful open source Linux program that we haven’t covered yet? Let us know by completing this form. |

