# mtcp-stack/mtcp

mTCP: A Highly Scalable User-level TCP Stack for Multicore Systems

Repository: https://github.com/mtcp-stack/mtcp
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/mtcp
Language: C
License: NOASSERTION
License Family: other
Last push: 2024-07-04T03:20:20+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 23/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4538, "days_push": 790, "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 2138, forks 461 (observed 2026-08-28T04:06:18.136546+00:00)

## What it is
mTCP is a highly scalable user-level TCP stack for multicore systems, implemented in C with kernel-bypass packet I/O via DPDK, netmap, or PacketShader. It ships example applications and ported servers like lighttpd and apache benchmark to demonstrate high-throughput networking.

## Use cases
- build a high-throughput TCP server that bypasses the kernel
- benchmark HTTP servers at millions of requests per second
- run a user-space TCP stack on multicore machines with DPDK
- experiment with alternative congestion control algorithms via CCP
- reduce per-packet overhead for packet processing applications

## When to choose
- you need extreme packet throughput and low latency on multicore Linux servers
- you want kernel-bypass networking with DPDK or netmap
- you are researching scalable TCP implementations or congestion control

## When to avoid
- you need a general-purpose portable TCP stack across operating systems
- your workload is low-traffic and standard kernel sockets suffice
- you need a maintained library with frequent updates and broad community support

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: maintenance
- function: networking, http-server, concurrency
- domain: networking, performance, developer-tools, microservices
- platform: c, cpp
- tags: tcp-stack, user-space-networking, dpdk, high-performance, multicore, kernel-bypass, performance, linux

## Member repositories
- mtcp-stack/mtcp (main) score 23

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:18.136546+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 2026-08-30T02:51:41.414301+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/mtcp-stack/mtcp (fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:18.136546+00:00, sha 7f9419be0b55)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.