100 Essential Web Servers, Proxies, and Load Balancers

Introduction

Web infrastructure requires reliable servers, proxies, and load balancers. Here are 100 essential tools for web infrastructure.

Web Servers

1. NGINX

High-performance web server and reverse proxy.

Download NGINX

2. Apache HTTP Server

Most widely used web server.

Download Apache

3. Caddy

Web server with automatic HTTPS.

Download Caddy

4. LiteSpeed

High-performance web server.

Download LiteSpeed

5. OpenLiteSpeed

Open-source LiteSpeed.

Download OpenLiteSpeed

6. Lighttpd

Lightweight web server.

Download Lighttpd

7. Cherokee

Fast and flexible web server.

Download Cherokee

8. Hiawatha

Secure and advanced web server.

Download Hiawatha

9. OpenResty

NGINX with Lua scripting.

Download OpenResty

10. Tengine

NGINX fork by Alibaba.

Download Tengine

Application Servers

11. Tomcat

Java servlet container.

Download Tomcat

12. Jetty

Java web server and servlet container.

Download Jetty

13. WildFly

Java EE application server.

Download WildFly

14. GlassFish

Jakarta EE reference implementation.

Download GlassFish

15. Gunicorn

Python WSGI HTTP server.

Download Gunicorn

16. uWSGI

Application server for Python/Ruby/Perl.

Download uWSGI

17. Unicorn

HTTP server for Ruby.

Download Unicorn

18. Puma

Ruby/Rack web server.

Download Puma

19. PM2

Node.js production process manager.

Download PM2

20. Passenger

Web server for Ruby, Python, Node.js.

Download Passenger

Reverse Proxies

21. Traefik

Cloud-native reverse proxy.

Download Traefik

22. HAProxy

Reliable high-performance TCP/HTTP load balancer.

Download HAProxy

23. Envoy

Cloud-native edge/middle proxy.

Download Envoy

24. Squid

Caching proxy for web.

Download Squid

25. Varnish

HTTP accelerator and caching proxy.

Download Varnish

26. Pound

Reverse proxy and load balancer.

Download Pound

27. mitmproxy

Interactive TLS-capable proxy.

Download mitmproxy

28. Tinyproxy

Light-weight HTTP/HTTPS proxy.

Download Tinyproxy

29. Privoxy

Non-caching web proxy with filtering.

Download Privoxy

30. 3proxy

Tiny free proxy server.

Download 3proxy

API Gateways

31. Kong

Cloud-native API gateway.

Download Kong

32. Tyk

Open-source API gateway.

Download Tyk

33. KrakenD

High-performance API gateway.

Download KrakenD

34. APISIX

Cloud-native API gateway.

Download APISIX

35. Gravitee

Open-source API management.

Download Gravitee

36. Express Gateway

API gateway built on Express.js.

Download Express Gateway

37. WSO2 API Manager

Full lifecycle API management.

Download WSO2

38. Apigee

Google Cloud API management.

Get Apigee

Load Balancers

39. Keepalived

High availability and load balancing.

Download Keepalived

40. LVS

Linux Virtual Server.

Download LVS

41. Seesaw

Linux Virtual Server load balancer.

Download Seesaw

42. GLB Director

GitHub Load Balancer.

Download GLB

43. Katran

Facebook layer 4 load balancer.

Download Katran

44. Maglev

Google load balancer (paper).

Read about Maglev

45. Neutrino

Scala load balancer.

Download Neutrino

Ingress Controllers

46. NGINX Ingress

Kubernetes ingress with NGINX.

Download NGINX Ingress

47. Traefik Ingress

Kubernetes ingress with Traefik.

Download Traefik Ingress

48. HAProxy Ingress

Kubernetes ingress with HAProxy.

Download HAProxy Ingress

49. Contour

Kubernetes ingress using Envoy.

Download Contour

50. Ambassador/Emissary

Kubernetes-native API gateway.

Download Emissary

Service Mesh

51. Istio

Service mesh for microservices.

Download Istio

52. Linkerd

Ultralight service mesh.

Download Linkerd

53. Consul Connect

Service mesh by HashiCorp.

Download Consul

54. Cilium

eBPF-based networking and security.

Download Cilium

55. Kuma

Universal service mesh.

Download Kuma

CDN and Caching

56. Cloudflare

Global CDN and security.

Get Cloudflare

57. Fastly

Edge cloud platform.

Get Fastly

58. KeyCDN

High-performance CDN.

Get KeyCDN

59. BunnyCDN

Fast and affordable CDN.

Get BunnyCDN

60. Apache Traffic Server

Fast, scalable caching proxy.

Download Traffic Server

SSL/TLS Tools

61. Let Encrypt (Certbot)

Free SSL certificates.

Download Certbot

62. acme.sh

ACME protocol client in shell.

Download acme.sh

63. mkcert

Local development certificates.

Download mkcert

64. cfssl

CloudFlare PKI/TLS toolkit.

Download cfssl

65. step-ca

Private certificate authority.

Download step-ca

WebSocket Servers

66. Socket.io

Real-time bidirectional communication.

Download Socket.io

67. ws

Simple WebSocket library for Node.js.

Download ws

68. Centrifugo

Scalable real-time messaging server.

Download Centrifugo

69. Pusher

Real-time messaging service.

Get Pusher

70. Ably

Real-time messaging platform.

Get Ably

HTTP/2 and HTTP/3

71. H2O

Optimized HTTP/2 server.

Download H2O

72. nghttp2

HTTP/2 C library.

Download nghttp2

73. quiche

QUIC and HTTP/3 implementation.

Download quiche

74. msquic

Microsoft QUIC implementation.

Download msquic

75. lsquic

LiteSpeed QUIC library.

Download lsquic

Testing Tools

76. Apache Bench (ab)

HTTP server benchmarking.

Get Apache

77. wrk

Modern HTTP benchmarking tool.

Download wrk

78. hey

HTTP load generator.

Download hey

79. vegeta

HTTP load testing tool.

Download vegeta

80. k6

Modern load testing tool.

Download k6

81. Locust

Scalable load testing in Python.

Download Locust

82. Gatling

Load testing framework.

Download Gatling

83. JMeter

Apache load testing tool.

Download JMeter

84. Artillery

Load testing for DevOps.

Download Artillery

85. bombardier

Fast HTTP benchmarking tool.

Download bombardier

Monitoring

86. GoAccess

Real-time web log analyzer.

Download GoAccess

87. ngxtop

Real-time NGINX metrics.

Download ngxtop

88. apachetop

Apache real-time log monitoring.

Download apachetop

89. NGINX Amplify

NGINX monitoring tool.

Get NGINX Amplify

90. mod_status

Apache server status.

Configure mod_status

Development Servers

91. http-server

Simple static HTTP server.

Download http-server

92. serve

Static file serving.

Download serve

93. miniserve

CLI tool to serve files via HTTP.

Download miniserve

94. darkhttpd

Single-file static web server.

Download darkhttpd

95. caddy

Dev server with auto-reload.

Download Caddy

Miscellaneous

96. Siege

HTTP regression testing.

Download Siege

97. httperf

HTTP performance measurement.

Download httperf

98. websocat

Command-line WebSocket client.

Download websocat

99. httpbin

HTTP request and response service.

Use httpbin

100. mockoon

API mocking tool.

Download Mockoon

Conclusion

These 100 web infrastructure tools cover everything from basic web serving to complex load balancing and API gateway scenarios.