# python-hyper/h2

Pure-Python HTTP/2 protocol implementation

Repository: https://github.com/python-hyper/h2
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/python-hyper-h2
Homepage: https://python-hyper.org/
Language: Python
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2026-08-05T09:02:26+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 75/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 96, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4088, "days_push": 28, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1040, forks 187 (observed 2026-08-28T04:03:20.480218+00:00)

## What it is
h2 is a pure-Python implementation of the HTTP/2 protocol stack that performs no I/O, making it embeddable in any program or framework. It exposes an in-memory state machine over HTTP/2 frames, letting developers build clients or servers on top of their own networking layer.

## Use cases
- implement http/2 support in a python http client
- build a custom http/2 server on my own event loop
- parse and generate http/2 frames in python
- add http/2 to an existing asyncio or twisted application
- test http/2 protocol behavior without real sockets
- embed http/2 in a proxy or load balancer written in python

## When to choose
- you need fine-grained control over the HTTP/2 protocol layer without a bundled network stack
- you want a pure-Python, dependency-light implementation that works with any concurrency model
- you are building an HTTP client, server, proxy, or framework that must speak HTTP/2

## When to avoid
- you just want to make HTTP requests - use requests or httpx instead
- you need a complete out-of-the-box HTTP server or client with I/O included
- you need HTTP/3 or QUIC support

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: stable
- function: http-server, http-client, parser, middleware
- domain: web-development, networking, apis, developer-tools
- platform: python, cross-platform
- tags: http2, protocol-implementation, pure-python, no-io, embeddable, hpack, framing

## Member repositories
- python-hyper/h2 (main) score 75

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:20.480218+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 2026-08-30T07:03:31.882884+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/python-hyper/h2 (fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:20.480218+00:00, sha af3b27024f09)
  - homepage: https://python-hyper.org/ (fetched 2026-08-29T13:04:34.768503+00:00, sha d006c13cf07b)
  - registry_pypi: https://pypi.org/pypi/h2/json (fetched 2026-08-29T13:04:34.780569+00:00, sha 5b9d94f5eeb3)
  - site_page: http://python-hyper.org/en/latest/contributing.html (fetched 2026-08-29T13:04:34.777993+00:00, sha 320405b4050f)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.