Best lightweight web server (only static content) for Windows [closed]

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I got application server running in Windows – IIS6.0 with Zend Server to execute PHP. I am looking for lightweight static content only web server on this same machine which will relive IIS form handling static content and increase performance.

It need to be only static content web server – maximum small and maximum effective – lighttpd seems too big because allow to FastCGI.

I am looking for: Windows, static content only, fast, and lightweight.

I am using Windows Server 2003.

Weismann answered 19/2, 2011 at 12:48 Comment(14)

@horse he's already got IIS, what advantages would Apache offer? – Lacustrine 19/2, 2011 at 19:30

Which version of Windows is your target? – Superposition 21/2, 2011 at 17:14

@David: What advantage would any "lightweight static content server" have over IIS? IIS is absolutely capable of serving static content - just as Apache – Flaunt 21/2, 2011 at 17:28

@a_horse I think that's the point I'm making. I would regard IIS and Apache as pretty similar. Heavyweight gorillas. You wouldn't switch from IIS to Apache just to serve static content. Then you'd have two servers to manage and secure and no discernible benefit! – Lacustrine 21/2, 2011 at 17:36

@David: I have never pictured Apache as "heavy weight" - as you can easily remove any module you don't need. But to me the original question does not really make sense - or I'm not understanding it. – Flaunt 21/2, 2011 at 17:40

@a_horse the lightweight servers can, for some workloads, handle much higher throughput – Lacustrine 21/2, 2011 at 17:41

If Windows wouldn't be a requirement, the Boa web server seems be exactly what you are searching for. boa.org – Schoen 24/2, 2011 at 19:20

Can we assume that the server must support gzip content-encoding (to reduce bandwidth) but need not support any authentication methods nor SSL (restricted access, proof of server identity)? – Comment 27/2, 2011 at 20:34

@james - Yes - gzip is welcome, SSL not ( speed is the goal ) – Weismann 28/2, 2011 at 2:3

@DavidHeffernan - I always use Heavyweight Gorilla servers. – Tacky 15/4, 2015 at 14:11

You can try siteonyourdevice.com, - Http 1.1 protocol. - Http 2 protocol. - Basic & digest authentication for secure access. - Directory index. - Cross-platform support. - Open source(we only transfer web content, you can check that on next link: project sources). – Eluviation 23/12, 2015 at 12:49

For dev on local with static content just use: "chrome.exe --allow-file-access-from-files"; nearly every one has :), no memory footprint :v, no need to install :v, no need to config :v; no need DNS resolve :D – Impertinent 6/4, 2016 at 11:11

go-www.com – Pharmaceutics 7/10, 2017 at 13:56

The question Extremely simple web server for Windows? on superuser.com names a few more. – Motionless 11/5, 2022 at 11:59

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Have a look at mongoose:

single executable
very small memory footprint
allows multiple worker threads
easy to install as service
configurable with a configuration file if required

Tribune answered 25/2, 2011 at 15:50 Comment(19)

Crashes are not something I have experienced so far. – Tribune 31/1, 2013 at 19:14

Worked for me. One problem when serving unicode text file. – Bloodshot 26/9, 2014 at 15:2

Not really fast when the served files are large (like > 500KB) then it gets serious performance problems. – Engdahl 11/3, 2015 at 5:6

Mongoose is no longer free. The Uniform Server (uniformserver.com) is a lightweight server solution for running a web server under the Windows OS. It includes the latest versions of Apache2, Perl5, PHP5, MySQL5, phpMyAdmin and more. No installation required. No registry dust. Just unpack and fire up. – Brynhild 14/4, 2016 at 13:35

@Brynhild I am not sure what you mean by "mongoose is no longer free": It is dual-licensed GPL2 and commercial. GPL2 is clearly a free license. Furthermore until commit 04fc209(including) in August 2013 it was distributed under what amounted to a copyleft license. You can still use that if the GPL2 is an issue for you. – Tribune 14/4, 2016 at 18:2

I just put it in the root folder of the static website, and run it, that's all! – Gemology 3/5, 2016 at 12:31

Mongoose is very nice and simple. Unfortunately it does not support url encoded accented characters (basically if the file name contains any non ASCII character mongoose doesn't serve it) – Tarsia 4/11, 2016 at 9:32

user guide docs.cesanta.com/mongoose_binary/dev/#/config-file – Shf 1/12, 2016 at 22:33

for me it doesnt listen to remote requests, only locally it works, give up – Shf 1/12, 2016 at 22:39

I got annoyed that mongoose became so commercialized so I made a simple Golang based static server and released on GitHub: github.com/ethanpil/sheret – Hypochromia 26/5, 2017 at 19:58

@Hypochromia Looks very interesting. I tried to run the binary you provided on Windows 8.1 but got a Windows error message "This app can't run on your PC". One thing that made mongoose popular was that binaries were provided. Maybe you could fix this? – Tribune 13/7, 2017 at 19:15

@Tribune maybe I built a 64bit binary and you are on a 32bit system? – Hypochromia 13/7, 2017 at 21:7

@Hypochromia I am indeed using a 32bit system. Could you provide a 32bit version of the executable? That would also run on 64bit systems. – Tribune 16/7, 2017 at 18:9

Mongoose binary fails windows virus detection. – Cadaver 4/8, 2018 at 17:20

@Jurgen Check the category the virus check reports, but probably it’s just the fact that it tries to listen on external ports. – Sporades 22/12, 2018 at 17:0

Antivirus detection rate 21/70: virustotal.com/gui/file/… – Azaleeazan 6/2, 2020 at 15:21

Yes but with things that sound more like heuristics or part of other detections. I assume that the tool was abused in some malware, that doesn't make the tool itself bad. – Leblanc 26/6, 2020 at 9:33

I've found CivetWeb to be a good replacement (it was forked from mongoose in 2013). – Solis 28/8, 2020 at 3:58

Look at the آHadid web server link. – Sutlej 10/2, 2021 at 20:47

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You can use Python as a quick way to host static content. On Windows, there are many options for running Python, I've personally used CygWin and ActivePython.

To use Python as a simple HTTP server just change your working directory to the folder with your static content and type python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8000, everything in the directory will be available at http:/localhost:8000/

Python 3

To do this with Python, 3.4.1 (and probably other versions of Python 3), use the http.server module:

python -m http.server <PORT>
# or possibly:
python3 -m http.server <PORT>

# example:
python -m http.server 8080

On Windows:

py -m http.server <PORT>

Mathers answered 26/2, 2011 at 17:17 Comment(14)

thus the "OR install ActiveState python" or any other version of python :-). – Mathers 24/5, 2013 at 6:38

You can even leave out the "8000" it seems to default to port 8000. – Berwick 19/1, 2014 at 15:22

I use it often to throw up quick pages to test if a TCP port is open, for example : echo "you made it..." > index.html; nohup python -m SimpleHTTPServer 10195 > service_startup.log 2>&1 & – Mathers 9/4, 2014 at 20:59

I would suggest this as solution number one to developers working on Linux or MacOS, where Python is quite possibly already there. – Serendipity 25/9, 2015 at 11:8

This is the single most useful thing I have read all day. I, bearer of @CamiloMartin's cannon ball, have been banging my head, trying to make Apache run on Cygwin. Like a terrible nitemare. And all to serve static content. eSniff-ster: Brilliant. – Hornsby 16/2, 2016 at 9:56

This is simply awesome! Solves all my needs and works much better than the Mongoose server (python handles all url-encoded paths flawlessly). – Tarsia 4/11, 2016 at 9:36

Why would you need Cygwin or ActivePython installed? Any installation of Python will work, particularly the default installation that most devs would have. – Lanellelanette 15/7, 2017 at 11:28

@Lanellelanette Any version of python would work. I haven't used windows for many years, but back then I only ever used Cygwin and IronPython windows. – Mathers 6/10, 2017 at 22:14

the python simplehttp server started from command line doesn't seem to support PHP. But PHP does. #12236376 start php -S 127.0.0.1:80 -t . (Note I suggest using start, to keep your current cmd window available.. like that, or running a bat that starts the web server with start) – Tia 26/2, 2018 at 0:53

@Tia The OP was how to host static files. Php, etc would be a different question :), but thanks for linking to the php answer for those looking for that. – Mathers 8/5, 2018 at 21:19

@Mathers That DOES host static files. If you make an index.html and have it in e.g. the root directory and got there, it will display index.html – Tia 8/5, 2018 at 22:33

Sort of an aside, but php -S localhost:8080 will as well. It serves static content, but unfortunately also executes php files as though it were mod_php. This may work for some. – Anisaanise 9/8, 2018 at 3:21

@CamiloMartin The files are dead, aren't they? I'm happy with my swiss-army cannonball. Having access to a functional bash environment on Windows is immensely useful. – Cranwell 3/9, 2019 at 4:26

Why does this have so many upvotes! What about the constraint lightweight – Vary 1/3, 2020 at 8:25

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198

Have a look at mongoose:

single executable
very small memory footprint
allows multiple worker threads
easy to install as service
configurable with a configuration file if required