Open-source alternatives to Http Foundation

Hono is a minimal JavaScript HTTP framework designed for building web servers across multiple runtimes, including Node.js, edge runtimes, and serverless platforms. It functions as a cross-runtime web server and a web standard API wrapper, normalizing various runtime request and response objects into standard Web API signatures. The project serves as an HTTP middleware orchestrator and request handler, utilizing a middleware-based request pipeline and hierarchical route mounting to create modular server structures. It distinguishes itself through a runtime-agnostic event wrapper that ensures c

Spark is a lightweight Java web framework and embedded server designed for building web applications with minimal boilerplate. It functions as an HTTP routing engine that maps URL paths and methods to handler functions, providing a specialized domain specific language for web development in Kotlin. The framework enables the implementation of REST APIs and web services through the definition of HTTP routes. It supports the extraction of dynamic path parameters and the transformation of response data into formats such as JSON. Additional capabilities include the ability to serve static files a

Quart is an asynchronous Python web framework that implements the ASGI specification. It is used to build high-performance HTTP and WebSocket services, JSON REST APIs, and web applications using async and await syntax for non-blocking request handling. The framework supports persistent bidirectional communication via WebSocket API servers and enables the proactive delivery of assets through HTTP server push. It also includes a template engine for rendering dynamic HTML web pages and supports incremental request and response streaming to manage large payloads. General capabilities cover reque

ihp is a type-safe web framework and full-stack application orchestrator designed for PostgreSQL. It functions as a server-side rendering framework and a type-safe ORM that automatically generates record types from SQL schemas to ensure compile-time query validation. The platform distinguishes itself by verifying routing, database queries, and templates at compile time to prevent runtime crashes. It implements real-time web interfaces using WebSockets for instant data synchronization and employs server-driven hypermedia for partial DOM patching. The framework covers a broad range of integrat

Salvo is a comprehensive Rust web framework for building asynchronous HTTP servers and web applications. It features a hierarchical web router that uses a tree-based structure to map requests to handlers and an asynchronous middleware pipeline based on the onion model for request and response pre- and post-processing. The framework is distinguished by its native support for modern network protocols, including a QUIC-based HTTP/3 implementation alongside HTTP/1 and HTTP/2. It includes an integrated OpenAPI documentation generator that extracts schemas directly from handler signatures to produc

Higress is an AI API gateway and cloud-native traffic manager that functions as a Kubernetes ingress controller. It provides a centralized system for routing, securing, and optimizing traffic directed toward large language models, AI agents, and microservice architectures. The project distinguishes itself through deep AI orchestration, including the ability to host and manage Model Context Protocol servers that transform REST APIs into tools for AI agents. It features specialized AI infrastructure for model request proxying, protocol translation across multiple providers, and semantic-based c

Elysia is a high-performance TypeScript web framework designed for building type-safe backend services. It provides a modular, plugin-based architecture that allows developers to compose server logic, middleware, and validation schemas into scalable application instances. By leveraging native web standards, the framework ensures portability across diverse JavaScript runtimes, including Node.js, Deno, and various edge computing environments. The framework distinguishes itself through its focus on end-to-end type safety, automatically synchronizing request and response definitions between the s

This project is an educational framework designed to teach the fundamentals of building core distributed systems and web services from scratch in Go. It provides a collection of modular implementations that demonstrate how to construct essential infrastructure components, including web servers, remote procedure call systems, distributed caches, and database abstraction layers. The framework distinguishes itself by focusing on the internal mechanics of these systems rather than providing a high-level abstraction for production use. It covers the implementation of complex architectural patterns

This project is a comprehensive sample library and implementation guide for ASP.NET Core. It provides a collection of practical examples and projects that demonstrate how to build web applications, RESTful APIs, and high-performance services. The repository focuses on a variety of architectural patterns, including the development of Minimal APIs, contract-first gRPC services, and real-time communication using WebSockets and Server-Sent Events. It includes detailed implementations for user identity and security, such as token-based authentication and CSRF protection. The codebase covers a bro

Flask is a micro web framework designed for building web services with a flexible, lightweight structure. It functions as a standard-compliant WSGI application server, providing the essential tools required to register URL routes, handle incoming HTTP requests, and construct responses. By utilizing a central application object, it allows developers to manage routing rules, template settings, and resource loading within a unified project environment. The framework distinguishes itself through a modular component architecture that enables the organization of routes, templates, and static files

nock is a Node.js HTTP mocking library and request interceptor. It captures outgoing network traffic to specific hosts and paths, returning predefined responses to decouple applications from external servers during automated testing. The project functions as an API expectation framework to verify that specific calls were made with correct parameters. It includes a traffic recorder that captures real network interactions as fixtures for playback and a network simulation tool to introduce artificial latency or trigger network errors. Its capabilities cover request matching via hostnames, paths

VCR is a Ruby library that records and replays HTTP interactions during test runs, storing them in serialized cassette files. It captures real HTTP requests and responses, then serves those recorded responses instead of making actual network calls, enabling fast and deterministic test suites that work offline. The library provides configurable request matching, allowing comparisons based on method, URI, host, path, body, or headers to find the correct recorded response. It supports scheduled cassette re-recording to automatically refresh stored interactions at a configurable interval, keeping

web.py is a minimal Python web framework that provides the core components needed to build web applications: URL routing, template rendering, database access, form handling, and session management. The framework uses a convention-based approach where URL patterns are automatically mapped to handler classes based on their names, eliminating the need for manual route configuration. It exposes applications as WSGI callables, making them deployable with any WSGI-compliant server. The framework distinguishes itself through its metaclass-driven auto-discovery system, which automatically registers h

Simpl is an HTML, CSS, and JavaScript example library that provides a collection of minimal functional demonstrations of core web technologies and native browser APIs. It serves as a reference implementation and pattern gallery for frontend development, offering practical examples of how to implement common web features. The project showcases a wide range of browser capabilities, including real-time web communication via WebSockets and WebRTC, responsive web design techniques for adaptive layouts, and the implementation of offline workflows using service workers. It also provides demonstratio

Faraday is an HTTP client library for Ruby that sends requests and processes responses through a middleware pipeline with pluggable adapters. Its core identity is built around a middleware-pipeline architecture where HTTP requests and responses flow through a chain of components that can modify, log, or transform data before reaching the backend, combined with an adapter-based backend abstraction that delegates HTTP execution to interchangeable backends like Net::HTTP or Typhoeus. The library distinguishes itself through a parallel-execution engine that dispatches multiple HTTP requests concu

Leptos is a full-stack Rust web framework designed for building reactive applications that share logic and types between the server and the browser. It provides a comprehensive toolkit for developing web interfaces where specific DOM nodes update automatically in response to changes in underlying reactive signals, rather than re-rendering entire component trees. The framework distinguishes itself through a fine-grained reactivity model that tracks dependencies at the individual data point level. It utilizes compile-time template transformation to convert declarative HTML-like syntax into opti

ServiceStack is a high-performance .NET web framework designed for building type-safe APIs using strongly-typed request and response objects. It functions as a message-based API engine that decouples business logic from the transport layer, allowing services to be exposed via multiple protocols including HTTP, gRPC, and various message queue providers. The framework is distinguished by its type-safe API generator, which produces native client SDKs and data transfer objects from service metadata across multiple languages. It also includes a distributed service gateway for microservices orchest

This repository is a collection of reference implementations and project scaffolds for the Koa web framework. It provides a set of boilerplates and examples for building Node.js web applications, including predefined project structures with database integrations and containerization. The project demonstrates the implementation of REST APIs and the use of HTTP middleware patterns for composing request handlers. It includes practical guides for designing structured endpoints and resource management patterns. The provided examples cover a range of capabilities including server-side rendering, r

This is a header-only C++ library that provides implementations for HTTP clients, HTTP servers, and a WebSocket framework. It allows for the creation of network services and the consumption of remote APIs without requiring a separate compilation step or external binary linking. The project features backend-agnostic TLS integration for secure HTTPS and WSS communication and employs a thread-pool model to process concurrent requests. It distinguishes itself with a full-duplex WebSocket state-machine and a middleware-based request pipeline that supports regular-expression path routing. The libr

Guzzle is a PHP HTTP client used for sending synchronous and asynchronous requests to web services. It serves as a concurrent HTTP request manager, an HTTP stream handler, and a middleware-based HTTP pipeline. The project is a PSR-7 compliant client, utilizing standardized PHP interfaces for requests, responses, and streams. The library differentiates itself through a customizable functional handler stack that allows for the interception and modification of the request and response lifecycle. It features an adapter-based transport system that enables swapping between network implementations,

routing-controllers is a declarative API router and web framework controller for TypeScript. It provides a system for defining HTTP routes and request handling logic using class-based decorators and metadata to organize API endpoints into a structured architecture. The project utilizes adapter-based server integration to decouple routing logic from the underlying web framework, providing specific integrations for Express and Koa. It features a reflection-based type transformation system that validates and transforms incoming request parameters into typed class instances. The capability surfa

Pyramid is a Python web framework and WSGI toolkit designed for building web applications. It functions as a URL routing engine that maps incoming HTTP requests to specific view callables using both pattern-based routing and hierarchical resource tree traversal. The framework is distinguished by its hybrid dispatch system, allowing developers to combine regular expression URL matching with the ability to resolve requests by navigating a tree of nested objects. It implements a flexible component architecture that supports application registry management, deferred configuration execution, and t

Hono is a lightweight web framework built on Web Standard APIs that executes across JavaScript runtimes including Cloudflare Workers, Deno, Bun, and Node.js.

Oak is a cross-runtime HTTP middleware framework and web server designed to operate across Deno, Node.js, Bun, and Cloudflare Workers. It provides a unified system for building APIs and web servers using a sequential chain of middleware functions and a hierarchical routing engine that maps URL paths to handlers via a nested tree structure. The framework includes a runtime-agnostic serverless adapter that translates diverse cloud provider events into a standard request and response interface. It also features a dedicated WebSocket server implementation for bidirectional real-time communication

FastHTML is a full-stack Python web framework designed for building interactive web applications using pure Python. It functions as an HTMX integration framework and a Python HTML domain-specific language, allowing developers to generate HTML structures using native objects and functions instead of external templating files. The framework is distinguished by its native support for real-time bidirectional communication via WebSockets and Server-Sent Events, enabling server-side updates to be pushed to the browser without full page reloads. It further integrates identity management through OAut

Revel is a full-stack web framework and toolkit for building applications with the Go language. It implements a model-view-controller architecture to separate business logic from user interface rendering, providing a comprehensive system for routing, parameter binding, and session management. The project distinguishes itself with a high-productivity development environment featuring automatic code compilation and hot-reloading, which refreshes the application state and templates upon file changes without requiring manual restarts. It also employs reflection-based parameter binding to automati

GCDWebServer is a lightweight HTTP 1.1 server for iOS, macOS, and tvOS. It serves as an embedded network server for Apple platforms, allowing developers to handle incoming requests through custom synchronous or asynchronous handlers. The project includes a WebDAV server implementation for remote file management, directory browsing, and synchronization using standard network clients. It also provides a web-based file manager that enables users to upload, download, and organize files within an application sandbox via a browser. Additional capabilities include gzip compression, JSON processing,