Caddy 2

Infrastructure

web server

SHOW HN2020

Legend

Caddy 2

Hi HN -- this is what I've been working on for the last 14 months, with the help of many contributors and…

caddyserver.com

#web server#reverse proxy#automatic https#caddy

778points
240comments
#11of 3,028 in 2020
Top 1%of 2020 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

58 positive, 58 neutral or asking, 9 mixed, 19 critical, out of 144 comments about the project. Thread score +0.32.

Execution: 18 for, 1 againstDocs: 6 for, 8 againstIdea: 5 for, 2 againstDesign: 6 for, 1 againstPerformance: 3 for, 3 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Website and documentation are clear and well designed

    From 1 comment
    • I know that HN is usually the first to outrage when a project website is too verbose or does not explain the product, but I just want to take a moment to say WHAT A GREAT WEBSITE…
      madmax108 on HN
  • Automatic HTTPS and certificate handling work well

    From 2 comments
    • We have several companies using it for tens of thousands of their customer sites. It's the only server we know of that can handle hundreds of thousands of certificates efficiently!
      mholt on HN
    • 5 years later and it still feels like magic. (Thank you, Let's Encrypt)
      mholt on HN

Objections

  • Config is more verbose than v1 Caddyfile

    From 2 comments
    • Slightly disappointed because they changed the Caddyfile syntax. I think it's a bit more verbose now, compared to v1.
      xrisk on HN
    • Some parameters might have one or two more words to type, but the growth in flexibility is enormous, and we felt it was worth the tradeoff. You can see a comparison here:…
      mholt on HN
  • Past telemetry and header ads raised privacy concerns

    From 1 comment
    • I somewhat remember the Caddy team having a history of shady behavior: advertisements in headers, hostility towards contributors, telemetry you have to opt-out of. Has any of…
      schoolornot on HN

Requests

  • Cloudflare DNS plugin built in

    From 1 comment
    • Hi @mholt, thanks a lot for Caddy. It is really awesome and we are considering using it for www.mailerlite.com landing pages. The problem that we have right now is that there is…
      nklmilojevic on HN
  • Built-in plugin registration on the website

    From 1 comment
    • The new website does not yet have the ability to register plugins. I'm writing it -- I already have the new build server mostly written -- but like with v1, it may take a few…
      mholt on HN

Questions

  • Whether certificates are separate per domain or SAN

    From 1 comment
    • Does Caddy request separate certificates for domains served through it, or is it handled using SANs?
      Tomte on HN
  • Whether Let's Encrypt limits affect many-domain setups

    From 1 comment
    • Hi mholt!, I am building an ecommerce SaaS.Obviously,i will have each domain pointed to my server.Is Caddy a good choice for automatically getting a certificate for each…
      celicaraptor on HN

Alternatives named

  • nginx

    From 2 comments
    • Yep, there are several reasons, you can read about them here: https://github.com/caddyserver/caddy/wiki/v2:-FAQ#why-json-for-configuration-why-not-any-other-serialization-format…
      mholt on HN
    • It's written in Go, so right out the gate you get stronger memory safety guarantees than other servers written in C, which results in more secure software on your edge. Caddy's…
      mholt on HN
  • Certbot

    From 1 comment
    • I see. Yeah, I think CertBot does that because of limitations in Apache (and possibly nginx as well) with "virtual hosting". So yeah, Caddy uses one name per certificate by…
      mholt on HN
  • Envoy

    From 1 comment
    • The REST API for dynamic updates is attractive. Was it influenced by Envoy? Are there any influences/overlap with Envoy? Is Caddy overlapping in the space of Envoy in any notable…
      bruth on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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