ninenines/cowboy
Cowboy
Cowboy is a high-performance HTTP server for Erlang and OTP. It is designed to handle web traffic with low memory usage and can be used as a standalone server or as an embedded networking library integrated directly into an existing application.
The project implements modern transport protocols, including HTTP/3, QUIC, and WebTransport, to enable faster connections and bidirectional data streaming. It also functions as a real-time communication server supporting Server-Sent Events for pushing asynchronous updates to clients.
Broad capabilities include path and content-type based request routing, static asset hosting with directory listings, and multipart file upload handling. The server provides security and traffic management through SSL/TLS encryption, basic authentication, cookie management, response body compression, and chunked transfer encoding.
Features
- Web Servers - Provides a high-performance HTTP server specifically designed for the Erlang and OTP ecosystem.
- Full-Duplex HTTP Communication - Supports simultaneous bidirectional data exchange over HTTP for real-time communication.
- HTTP/3 Implementations - Implements HTTP/3 and QUIC to enable faster connections and bidirectional data streaming.
- QUIC Implementations - Provides a full implementation of the QUIC transport protocol to support HTTP/3 and reduce connection latency.
- Real-time Communication Servers - Provides a high-performance server designed for live messaging and bidirectional data streams.
- Embedded Network Stacks - Integrates HTTP server capabilities directly into Erlang applications to avoid managing separate processes.
- HTTP Request Handling - Processes incoming web traffic using a low-latency, memory-efficient HTTP stack.
- Embedded Web Servers - Can be integrated directly into an existing application process as an embedded networking library.
- High-Performance HTTP Servers - Provides a high-performance HTTP server optimized for low memory usage and high throughput.
- Request Routing - Implements request routing by matching paths and HTTP methods against defined rules.
- Route Handlers - Provides a mechanism for mapping incoming HTTP requests to specific backend handler functions.
- Real-Time Data Streams - Supports real-time data streaming via Server-Sent Events and persistent network connections.
- Server-Sent Events - Implements the Server-Sent Events protocol to push asynchronous real-time updates to clients.
- Socket Networking - Manages low-level network connections using the Erlang OTP socket interface for high-concurrency handling.
- SSL/TLS Connection Security - Encrypts traffic between the client and server using SSL/TLS to ensure data privacy and integrity.
- Process Models - Employs a process-per-connection model using lightweight Erlang processes to ensure request isolation and fault tolerance.
- Content-Type Based Routing - Hono returns different data formats such as HTML or JSON by inspecting request headers to meet specific client requirements.
- Static File Servers - Ships a built-in system for hosting static assets and generating directory listings over HTTP.
- Web API Frameworks - Enables web API development with path and method-based routing for JSON and HTML responses.
- Static Asset Serving - Delivers static files from the local filesystem and generates directory listings for client browsing.
- API Frameworks - Small, fast HTTP server for Erlang.
- Language Toolkits - Small, fast HTTP server for Erlang.
- Web Frameworks - High-performance, small, and modular HTTP server.
Star history
How this analysis was created: This summary and feature list are AI-generated from collected project material and can contain mistakes. Stars, license and language are imported from GitHub. Inclusion does not mean that we have tested or audited this project. Check the source documentation for any feature you depend on. Learn more on our About page.
