Caddy Has a Free Web Server — Automatic HTTPS with Zero Configuration

#webserver #devops #https #go

Caddy is a modern web server that automatically provisions and renews HTTPS certificates.

What You Get for Free

Automatic HTTPS — Let's Encrypt certificates provisioned and renewed automatically
Zero config HTTPS — just specify your domain, Caddy handles the rest
HTTP/3 — QUIC support out of the box
Reverse proxy — load balancing, health checks, circuit breakers
Static file server — with compression, range requests, caching headers
API — configure Caddy dynamically via REST API
Caddyfile — human-readable config format
Single binary — no dependencies, runs anywhere
Plugins — DNS providers, auth, rate limiting, and more

Quick Start

# Install
sudo apt install -y caddy

# Serve a site with automatic HTTPS (2 lines!)
# Caddyfile:
example.com {
    root * /var/www/html
    file_server
}

# Reverse proxy (1 line!)
example.com {
    reverse_proxy localhost:3000
}

# Start
caddy run

Why Developers Are Switching from Nginx

Nginx requires manual certificate management (certbot cron jobs):

Caddy auto-HTTPS — zero certbot, zero cron jobs, zero renewal failures
Simpler config — Caddyfile vs nginx.conf
Dynamic config — change settings via API without restarting
Modern defaults — HTTP/3, OCSP stapling, TLS 1.3 by default

A sysadmin managed 23 sites with Nginx + certbot. Certificates expired twice when cron failed silently. After switching to Caddy, certificate management is fully automatic — zero renewals failed in 18 months.