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Alex Spinov
Alex Spinov

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Caddy Has a Free Web Server with Automatic HTTPS — Zero-Config SSL for Every Site

#security #opensource #webdev #devops

A developer spent 2 hours setting up Let's Encrypt with certbot and Nginx. Then the certificate expired 3 months later because the cron job was wrong.

Caddy is a web server that automatically provisions and renews HTTPS certificates. No certbot, no cron jobs, no manual renewal. Just works.

What Caddy Offers for Free

  • Automatic HTTPS - Provisions and renews Let's Encrypt certs automatically
  • Simple Config - Caddyfile syntax is human-readable
  • Reverse Proxy - Route to backend services with one line
  • Load Balancing - Built-in load balancing
  • HTTP/3 - Supports QUIC protocol
  • On-Demand TLS - Get certs for new domains on first request
  • API - Full REST API for dynamic configuration

Quick Start 

# Caddyfile
example.com {
    reverse_proxy localhost:3000
}
# That is it. HTTPS is automatic.
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GitHub: caddyserver/caddy - 61K+ stars

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