| Original author(s) | Jan Kneschke |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Lighttpd Developers |
| Initial release | March 2003 |
| Stable release | 1.4.30 / December 18, 2011 [±] |
| Preview release | 1.5.0 / February 3, 2007 [1] [±] |
| Written in | C |
| Operating system | Cross-platform |
| Available in | English |
| Type | Web server |
| License | BSD |
| Website | www.lighttpd.net |
lighttpd (pronounced "lighty")[2] is an open-source web server more optimized for speed-critical environments than common products while remaining standards-compliant, secure and flexible. It was originally written by Jan Kneschke as a proof-of-concept of the c10k problem - how to handle 10,000 connections in parallel on one server,[3] but has gained worldwide popularity.[4]
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The low memory footprint (compared to other web servers), small CPU load and speed optimizations make lighttpd suitable for servers that are suffering load problems, or for serving static media separately from dynamic content. lighttpd is free software/open source, and is distributed under the BSD license. It runs natively on Unix-like operating systems as well as Microsoft Windows[5].
lighttpd supports the FastCGI, SCGI and CGI interfaces to external programs, permitting web applications written in any programming language to be used with the server. As a particularly popular language, PHP performance has received special attention. Lighttpd's FastCGI can be configured to support PHP with opcode caches (like APC) properly and efficiently. Additionally, it has received attention from its popularity within the Python, Perl, Ruby and Lua communities. It is a popular web server for the Catalyst and Ruby on Rails web frameworks. Lighttpd does not support ISAPI.
chroot supportselect()-/poll()-/epoll() based web serverkqueue and epollLighttpd officially does not support sending large files from CGI, FastCGI, or proxies [8] unless X-Sendfile is used.
Lighttpd is used by a number of high-traffic websites, among them Meebo and YouTube. Wikimedia runs Lighttpd servers [9][10][11][12] as does SourceForge.[12] Three of the most famous torrent listing websites, The Pirate Bay, Mininova and isoHunt, which have more than 1,000 hits per second, also use Lighttpd.[13] Lighttpd currently holds fifth place on the Netcraft "Web Server Survey" (November 2010).[14]