# warmcat/libwebsockets

canonical libwebsockets.org networking library

Repository: https://github.com/warmcat/libwebsockets
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/libwebsockets
Homepage: https://libwebsockets.org
Language: C
License: NOASSERTION
License Family: other
Topics: websockets, c-library, portable-library, client-server, lightweight, libwebsockets, c, embeddable, libuv, libev, libevent, http2, sshd, freertos, lws
Last push: 2026-08-26T19:06:49+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 77/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4956, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases, no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 5320, forks 1607 (observed 2026-08-28T04:09:15.600234+00:00)

## What it is
Libwebsockets is a lightweight, pure C networking library providing client and server implementations for HTTP/1, HTTP/2, HTTP/3, WebSockets, WebTransport, and MQTT with a nonblocking event loop. It is highly portable from embedded RTOS devices to mass cloud serving, with pluggable TLS backends and event loop integrations.

## Use cases
- add websocket client or server support to a C application
- build a lightweight embedded HTTP/WebSocket server on FreeRTOS
- implement HTTP/2 or HTTP/3 (QUIC) communication in C
- share an event loop with libuv, libevent, libev, or glib
- serve secure wss/https traffic with OpenSSL, mbedTLS, or GnuTLS
- build an MQTT client with TLS in a resource-constrained device

## When to choose
- you need a battle-tested, security-minded C networking library with a tiny footprint
- you target platforms from embedded RTOS to cloud servers with one codebase
- you need multiple protocols (h1/h2/h3, websockets, MQTT) in a single library
- you want to integrate with an existing foreign event loop

## When to avoid
- you want a high-level, batteries-included web framework with routing and templating
- your project is in a higher-level language with native websocket libraries
- you need a quick prototype and C's callback-based API is too low-level

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: stable
- function: websocket, http-server, http-client, networking, serialization, cryptography
- domain: networking, web-development, embedded-systems, developer-tools
- platform: windows, cross-platform, embedded, iot, c
- tags: websockets, http2, http3, quic, mqtt, libuv, libev, libevent, freertos, tls, lightweight, embeddable, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- warmcat/libwebsockets (main) score 77

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:15.600234+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 2026-08-29T17:58:55.604159+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/warmcat/libwebsockets (fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:15.600234+00:00, sha 571cb9ba7bb4)
  - homepage: https://libwebsockets.org (fetched 2026-08-29T08:53:33.270916+00:00, sha 3a13c4b7a8a9)
  - site_page: https://libwebsockets.org/lws-api-doc-main/html/index.html (fetched 2026-08-29T08:53:33.279951+00:00, sha d1979b2243f7)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.