C/C++ Web Server Library?

Question

I'm looking for a well-written, flexible library written in C or C++ (I'm writing my apps in C++) that can be used to embed an relatively simple HTTP server into my applications. Ultimately I will use this for application monitoring and control.

There are a number of great client-side libraries (e.g. libwww, neon, curl) but I'm struggling to find a good solution for the server-side. I'm sure other folks have done this before, so I'd love to hear what folks have done and what has worked and what hasn't.

Answer 1

We have used this one for a while. It was OK for small load, for hundred TPS and more had to replace it with Apache module

Answer 2

I'm not aware of any such library, although there does seem to be a need. In lieu of somebody suggesting one, here's an alternate approach that I might recommend:

You might consider using a lightweight httpd daemon such as lighttpd and interfacing it with your app via FastCGI.

FastCGI is a socket mechanism where the web server will feed requests to your app, which can then answer with the content over a simple protocol. There are a number of libraries that implement FastCGI which should make it easy to use in your app.

Answer 3

I've heard about Wt (nothing to do with Qt, I think :) ) but haven't actually used it.

Answer 4

We've been to both extremes on this, and not found much in the middle.

At one end we implemented our own simple server (albeit quite a few years ago now), which I wouldn't recommend.

At the other extreme we've embedded IIS, which isn't exactly light-weight (especially if you're not .net to start with) but provides a tremendous amount of flexibility and actually isn't all that difficult.

Answer 5

You may want to check Baby Web Server

Answer 6

My current favourite is libpion: pion-network-library

which effectively uses the nice boost.asio library for async sockets

Answer 7

How about Shttpd? I did some googling for a web server and came across this one? Has anyone used it before?

Answer 8

for future search and reference: http://libwebserver.sourceforge.net/

Answer 9

What about libmicrohttpd?