DEdenysonique·Nov 1, 2026Submission
Bashttpd: A web server written in bash
4 points · Open discussionavleen
bashttpd
Shell2012–2026
avleen / bashttpd
bashttpd
A web server written in bash
14Distinct people
17Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
1.6KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
A web server written in bash
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
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Also in these discussions
No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 1:49:46 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year17 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2012-09-14 07:10:30 UTC to 2026-11-01 00:34:20 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| 2013 | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2014 | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 1 | 3 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
What Hacker News says
17 sourceslol, I’ve never tried web serving from vimscript. I think handling sockets might be the hard part. bash is there too, and you can absolutely do simple web serving in bash, provided you also have netcat or socat https://github.com/avleen/bashttpd
Sadly it doesn’t appear either of those socket utilities are ported yet.
In Redox OS gets RISC-V supportIn a way I feel that everything is an alternative to everything and at the same time nothing is.
As you said it all depends on the circumstances. But I don't really see Zig competing with Go. They both can do mostly the same things, but they both approach them from quite a different sides.
For example bash is being used in:
- gaming (https://github.com/JosefZIla/bash2048)
- web apps (https://github.com/avleen/bashttpd)
- networking
- CLIs
- distributed systems (https://github.com/frameable/aviary.sh)
- crypto (https://armedia.com/blog/blockchain-program-written-bash/ https://github.com/grondilu/bitcoin-bash-tools)
- systems programming (https://github.com/damphat/kv-bash)
- language tooling
Some of those make more sense than others. However we all talk about a mythical general case. For every language there are niches that are covered by
Read the rest
it more significantly. For Go it would probably be web backend. It doesn't mean it is only suited to this one niche, it is used in everything. In general it is used there more. I don't believe that Rust sees the most use in the same niche to the same order that Go sees it.
Is Rust or Zig an alternative to php, awk or Lisp or vice versa? In practice I don't really think so.
I guess it all depends on one's definition of "alternative". I don't think that a statistical Go programmer would see Zig as a real alternative. Statistical C programmer might see it as a Go alternative, but that probably would not be a question he would ask.
I'm fully in favor of replacing shell scripts with Python3 scripts wherever possible. In fact that's part of my job. That being said, the author of this article is using confusing / wrong terminology to discuss bash.
This article says that, "The [bash] shell isn't a complete programming language". While I agree that bash lacks any real data types besides strings, bash is a Turing-complete programming language[1], so it's theoretically possible to write _any_ program in bash that can be written in Python. It might be a hell of a lot uglier and lack things like imports, modules, etc., but it can be done.
For example, there is an implementation of an HTTP daemon written purely in bash[2]. Once again-- terrible idea, but great execution.
[1]: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Bash_Shell_Scripting#A_few_not...
[2]: https://github.com/avleen/bashtt
Read the rest
pd
edit: added newline to separate references
Many examples here in the comments and in the gist itself don't follow it to the letter either, it's easy enough to serve one file.
This one might work https://github.com/avleen/bashttpd
> socat TCP4-LISTEN:8080 EXEC:/usr/local/bin/bashttpd
In Big list of HTTP static server one-linershttps://github.com/avleen/bashttpd for a bash based one (that uses socat or netcat under the covers)
In An HTTP server in a single .c fileBashttpd A web server written in bash
2 points · Open discussionMaybe you could ask the people who use/maintain this: https://github.com/avleen/bashttpd
In I got tired of PHP and Perl, so I tried bashSee also: https://github.com/avleen/bashttpd
In I got tired of PHP and Perl, so I tried bashMaybe migrating from bashttpd:
https://github.com/avleen/bashttpd
In 1991 – a server-side web framework written in ForthBashttpd – A web server written in bash
4 points · Open discussionSounds like an excelent front end, for best performance. For the back end stability is paramount, that's why I would always recommend to pair this with a shell script server: https://github.com/avleen/bashttpd
Bash is undeniably the language with the highest possible stability, you can literally feel the stability and security when a file is served and the hard drives go crazy.
In Asmttpd: Web server for Linux written in amd64 assembly (2017)It can be used with a relevant Bash HTTP server for minimal developer learning curve.
https://github.com/avleen/bashttpd
In Show HN: Bashcached – memcached built on bash and ncatYou can scale anything[0] if your content is fairly static.
[0] https://github.com/avleen/bashttpd
In Why I wouldn’t use Rails for a new companySee also bashttpd from one of the etsy engineers: https://github.com/avleen/bashttpd
In Simple web server using bash and ncShowing the 15 most recent of 17 sources. Enable JavaScript to search and browse every indexed mention.