Static Web Server is a high-performance, cross-platform, asynchronous web server built in Rust for serving static files and assets with minimal resource usage.

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🚀 Overview

Static Web Server (SWS) is a production-ready web server optimized for delivering static content such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images, and other assets. Written entirely in Rust, it combines blazing speed, memory safety, and ease of deployment into a single static binary under 4MB with no runtime dependencies.

It solves the challenge of serving static files efficiently without the overhead of full-featured servers like Nginx or Apache. Whether you're hosting a static website, a Single Page Application (SPA), or assets in a Docker container, SWS provides high throughput, HTTP/2 support, compression, and security features out of the box.

Built for developers and DevOps engineers who need a lightweight, reliable static file server that runs anywhere—from desktops to servers, Android devices to WebAssembly environments. José Luis Quintana created it to leverage Rust's concurrency (Tokio), HTTP handling (Hyper), and safety guarantees for modern, performant static hosting.

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✨ Key Features

• Blazing-fast async file serving with HTTP/2, TLS/HTTPS, on-demand compression (GZip, Brotli, Zstd), and partial content (byte-range requests)
• Cross-platform support: Linux, macOS, Windows, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Android, Docker, WebAssembly (Wasmer)
• Rich configuration: CLI, env vars, TOML files; custom headers/redirects/rewrites, CORS, basic auth, virtual hosts, Prometheus metrics, maintenance mode
• Production-ready extras: graceful shutdown, directory listing, SPA fallbacks, cache control, security headers, Windows service
• Optional: pre-compressed files, health checks, socket activation

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🛠 Tech Stack

• Backend: Rust, Hyper (HTTP), Tokio (async runtime)
• Logging: Tracing
• Binaries: Musl libc (static linking)
• Container: Docker (Scratch, Alpine, Debian images)
• Auth: Basic HTTP Authentication
• Hosting: Self-hosted binaries/Docker

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👥 Who Is This For?

This project is useful for:

• Developers who want to quickly serve static sites, SPAs, or assets locally or in production
• DevOps teams deploying lightweight servers in Docker, Kubernetes, or edge environments
• Open-source enthusiasts and Rust fans building or extending static hosting tools

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📸 Screenshots / Demo

• Live demo: Download pre-built binaries from releases and run sws --help or serve a directory
• GitHub: https://github.com/static-web-server/static-web-server

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🔥 Project Status

• 🟢 Actively building

Last updated: 2026-03-24

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❓ FAQ

Is this project free?

Yes — fully open source (MIT/Apache-2.0). (Pre-compiled binaries and Docker images are freely available.)

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Is the source code available?

Yes — link to repository https://github.com/static-web-server/static-web-server

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Can I contribute?

Yes — file issues/PRs on GitHub, join Discussions, or chat on Discord. Follow CONTRIBUTING.md and code of conduct.

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📬 Contact & Links

• Website: https://static-web-server.net
• GitHub: https://github.com/static-web-server/static-web-server
• Twitter/X: https://x.com/joseluis_q
• Discord: https://discord.gg/VWvtZeWAA7

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