# varnish/hitch

A scalable TLS proxy by Varnish Software.

Repository: https://github.com/varnish/hitch
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/hitch
Homepage: https://www.varnish-software.com/
Language: C
License: NOASSERTION
License Family: other
Last push: 2025-10-29T10:49:00+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 45/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 49, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4173, "days_push": 308, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1943, forks 157 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:57.559455+00:00)

## What it is
Hitch is a scalable TLS/SSL termination proxy written in C by Varnish Software. It decrypts TLS connections and forwards unencrypted traffic to backend servers, efficiently handling tens of thousands of connections on multicore machines.

## Use cases
- terminate TLS/SSL connections in front of a backend server
- offload SSL decryption from application servers
- add HTTPS support to a plain HTTP backend
- handle tens of thousands of concurrent TLS connections efficiently
- pair a TLS proxy with Varnish Cache or HAProxy
- scale TLS termination across multicore machines

## When to choose
- you need high-performance TLS termination with low overhead
- your backend cannot handle TLS itself and you want a dedicated proxy layer
- you run Varnish Cache and need an SSL frontend
- you want a lightweight, C-based proxy focused solely on TLS offloading

## When to avoid
- you need full HTTP-level features like caching, routing, or load balancing in the same component
- you want a general-purpose reverse proxy with rich configuration
- you need TLS termination with built-in WAF or application-layer security features

## Facets
- artifact type: service
- maturity: active
- function: proxy, security, networking, http-server
- domain: networking, security, web-development, infrastructure-as-code
- platform: cross-platform, cli
- tags: tls-termination, ssl-offloading, high-performance, c, varnish, load-balancing, linux

## Member repositories
- varnish/hitch (main) score 45

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:57.559455+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T03:08:03.146166+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/varnish/hitch (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:57.559455+00:00, sha 4fd961262894)
  - homepage: https://www.varnish-software.com/ (fetched 2026-08-29T10:47:20.398726+00:00, sha 4850ac88dd93)
  - site_page: https://www.varnish-software.com/about/connect/events (fetched 2026-08-29T10:47:20.421062+00:00, sha 974474f2f435)
  - site_page: https://docs.varnish-software.com/ (fetched 2026-08-29T10:47:20.409978+00:00, sha 7f79967fbd17)
  - site_page: https://www.varnish-software.com/about (fetched 2026-08-29T10:47:20.412377+00:00, sha 1865a8226f6e)
  - site_page: https://www.varnish-software.com/about/company/what-is-varnish (fetched 2026-08-29T10:47:20.414421+00:00, sha 3b94c384d6ef)
  - site_page: https://www.varnish-software.com/about/company/partners (fetched 2026-08-29T10:47:20.417269+00:00, sha 82bc43be1975)
  - site_page: https://www.varnish-software.com/about/company/news-press (fetched 2026-08-29T10:47:20.419230+00:00, sha 5a54aa382d65)
  - site_page: https://www.varnish-software.com/products/platform/varnish-enterprise (fetched 2026-08-29T10:47:20.422731+00:00, sha 12e8022d4fb4)
  - site_page: https://www.varnish-software.com/developers (fetched 2026-08-29T10:47:20.408116+00:00, sha c8c3ed54c2b9)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.