Lighttpd (pronounced “lighty”) is a secure, fast, compliant, and very flexible open-source web server, optimised for high-performance environments. It is designed to serve more clients per second with lower CPU and memory usage than traditional servers, making it a popular choice for routers, embedded devices, and busy static-content sites.

Key Features

• Extremely low resource usage — small memory footprint and efficient event-driven architecture, ideal for constrained environments
• High performance — serves a large number of concurrent connections with minimal CPU overhead
• FastCGI, SCGI & CGI — integrates well with PHP (php-fpm), Python, Ruby, and other dynamic backends
• TLS / HTTPS — modern TLS support with HTTP/2 and secure defaults
• URL rewriting — flexible mod_rewrite and mod_magnet for clean URLs and request handling
• HTTP/2 & HTTP/3 — supports the latest HTTP protocols for faster page loads
• Modular plugins — WebDAV, compression, caching, and more via pluggable modules
• Simple plain-text configuration — easy to read, write, and automate

Why Use Lighttpd?

Lighttpd excels where resources are limited but performance matters — embedded systems, single-board computers, and high-traffic static file serving. Its tiny footprint means more headroom for the applications you actually run, and it has a reputation for rock-solid stability.

Use Cases

• Serving static files and media with minimal RAM and CPU
• Running on routers, Raspberry Pi, and embedded Linux devices
• Fronting PHP-FPM applications where a lightweight web server is preferred
• High-concurrency workloads that would exhaust heavier servers

Platform

Linux · macOS · Windows · BSD · Solaris

Licence

BSD 3-Clause License

Website

http://www.lighttpd.net