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| Original author(s) | Hugo Leisink |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Hugo Leisink |
| Initial release | 2002; 23 years ago (2002) |
| Stable release | 11.7[1]  / 9 April 2025 |
| Repository | |
| Written in | C[2] |
| Operating system | FreeBSD,Haiku os,HP-UX,IBM AIX,Linux,OpenBSD,OS X,QNX,Solaris,Unix-like andWindows[3] |
| Platform | POSIX,Cross-platform |
| Available in | English |
| Type | Web server |
| License | GPL-2.0-only |
| Website | hiawatha |
Hiawatha was afree and open source cross-platformweb server developed byHugo Leisink.[4]
Hiawatha development began in January 2002 as a web server. Leisink, a computer science student at the time, initially created it to support internet servers based in student houses inSouth Holland and theNetherlands, with security as its focus.
The January 2009 edition ofLinux Magazine included an article on the Hiawatha web server, describing it as "a light web server with good performance and some innovative security functions."[5] In 2015 Hiawatha was cited as a lightweight alternative toApache, as it prioritized the installation experience and reduced storage over adding other features.[6][7][8]
In February of 2019, Leisink announced the end of major development.[9] Releases since then have focused on fixing bugs, and keeping components up to date.[10]
As of December 2023, Leisink has continued to publish bug fixes and small improvement releases.[10]
The Hiawatha web server featured:
Hiawatha aimed to preventSQL-injection, cross-site scripting (XSS),Cross-site request forgery (CSRF), anddenial-of-service attacks. It allowed banning of potential hackers and had an option to limit the runtime ofCGI applications.[14]RFC3546 support was included with version 8.6, which was developed withPolarSSLv1.2.
In 2012, a performance test was carried out by an independent researcher (SaltwaterC). They found that Hiawatha was faster than ten other servers with Drupal static content, but performed comparably to the rest in other metrics.[15]
Hiawatha has supported load-balancedFastCGI and the PHP project's FastCGI Process Manager (PHP-FPM).[16]
