actor-framework/actor-framework

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

3432 stars · 572 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded

CAF (C++ Actor Framework) is an open-source implementation of the Actor Model in C++, providing lightweight actors, network-transparent messaging, pattern matching, and HTTP/WebSocket support. It enables building scalable, concurrent, and distributed applications with native performance and low memory overhead.

Use cases

• build concurrent applications in C++ without data races
• implement distributed systems with network-transparent messaging
• write an HTTP or WebSocket server using actors
• scale actors across machines in a data center or cloud
• build low-footprint async software for IoT or embedded devices
• model message-passing systems with pattern matching on messages

When to choose

• you need high-performance, low-overhead concurrency in native C++
• you want to scale an application from a single machine to distributed deployment
• you prefer the actor model over threads and locks
• you need resilient distributed systems with failover-friendly design

When to avoid

• your project is in another language or requires a managed runtime
• you need a simple single-threaded application with no concurrency
• you want batteries-included web frameworks rather than a messaging runtime
• your team is unfamiliar with actor-model thinking and cannot invest in learning it

Facets

framework · maturity stable

concurrency rpc http-server websocket message-queue middleware microservices developer-tools backend cpp cross-platform windows embedded actor-model caf pattern-matching distributed-actors async concurrent-programming real-time linux macos

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