Add Ulfius: C REST framework on GNU Libmicrohttpd (first C app framework!)#26
Merged
MDA2AV merged 4 commits intoMDA2AV:mainfrom Mar 16, 2026
Merged
Add Ulfius: C REST framework on GNU Libmicrohttpd (first C app framework!)#26MDA2AV merged 4 commits intoMDA2AV:mainfrom
MDA2AV merged 4 commits intoMDA2AV:mainfrom
Conversation
yder's CMake requires libsystemd-dev for journald logging, which isn't available in minimal Docker builds. Disable it with -DWITH_JOURNALD=OFF since we only need yder as a dependency for ulfius, not its journald features.
Collaborator
Author
|
Build fix: yder (logging library dependency) requires Added |
- Include zlib.h and link -lz - Pre-compress large JSON at startup with deflateInit2 (gzip mode) - Serve gzipped response when Accept-Encoding includes gzip - Add zlib1g to runtime image
libmicrohttpd is HTTP/1.1 only. Removed baseline-h2 and static-h2 from tests list since they can't pass.
Collaborator
Author
|
CI fix: removed libmicrohttpd is HTTP/1.1 only — no HTTP/2 support. The H2 tests were incorrectly included and caused 4 test failures (H2 negotiation + missing Content-Type over H2). All HTTP/1.1 tests (22/22) passed clean ✅ |
Contributor
Benchmark ResultsFramework: Full log |
Collaborator
Author
|
Ulfius benchmarks are in! 🎉 Solid showing for a C REST framework built on GNU Libmicrohttpd: 🚀 Pipelined: 1.27M req/s at 16384c — impressive that it actually scales up with more connections. MHD's thread pool + internal epoll handling this well. The limited-conn numbers (176K) suggest MHD's thread pool has some per-connection overhead on connection churn — makes sense given it's managing internal connection state. Upload at ~800 req/s is on par with other entries for the 20MB profile. The memory spike to 15.8GB at 512c suggests MHD buffers the full body per-thread — could be tunable but works fine. Ready for merge! 🚀 |
MDA2AV
approved these changes
Mar 16, 2026
This file contains hidden or bidirectional Unicode text that may be interpreted or compiled differently than what appears below. To review, open the file in an editor that reveals hidden Unicode characters.
Learn more about bidirectional Unicode characters
Sign up for free
to join this conversation on GitHub.
Already have an account?
Sign in to comment
2 participants
Add this suggestion to a batch that can be applied as a single commit.This suggestion is invalid because no changes were made to the code.Suggestions cannot be applied while the pull request is closed.Suggestions cannot be applied while viewing a subset of changes.Only one suggestion per line can be applied in a batch.Add this suggestion to a batch that can be applied as a single commit.Applying suggestions on deleted lines is not supported.You must change the existing code in this line in order to create a valid suggestion.Outdated suggestions cannot be applied.This suggestion has been applied or marked resolved.Suggestions cannot be applied from pending reviews.Suggestions cannot be applied on multi-line comments.Suggestions cannot be applied while the pull request is queued to merge.Suggestion cannot be applied right now. Please check back later.
Ulfius — Pure C REST Framework
Ulfius is a lightweight HTTP framework for building REST APIs in pure C. Built on GNU Libmicrohttpd with Jansson for JSON, it's designed for embedded systems and apps where memory footprint matters.
Why add it?
Implementation
-O3 -flto -march=nativeTests enabled
baseline, noisy, pipelined, limited-conn, json, upload, compression, mixed, baseline-h2, static-h2
cc @babelouest — thought it'd be cool to see how Ulfius stacks up against other frameworks in HttpArena! Pure C with libmicrohttpd is a really interesting combination for benchmarks 🔧