Restbed is a robust, enterprise-class framework for building server-side applications that demand secure, reliable, and scalable HTTP communication. It provides a flexible foundation for modeling complex business processes and is engineered to support deployment across mobile, tablet, desktop, and embedded environments.

It's akin to embedding NGINX into your companies own product line. -- Solutions Architect, Bellrock Technology

#include <memory>
#include <cstdlib>
#include <restbed>

using namespace std;
using namespace restbed;

void post_method_handler( const shared_ptr< Session > session )
{
    const auto request = session->get_request( );

    int content_length = request->get_header( "Content-Length", 0 );

    session->fetch( content_length, [ ]( const shared_ptr< Session > session, const Bytes & body )
    {
        fprintf( stdout, "%.*s\n", ( int ) body.size( ), body.data( ) );
        session->close( OK, "Hello, World!", { { "Content-Length", "13" } } );
    } );
}

int main( const int, const char** )
{
    auto resource = make_shared< Resource >( );
    resource->set_path( "/resource" );
    resource->set_method_handler( "POST", post_method_handler );

    auto settings = make_shared< Settings >( );
    settings->set_port( 1984 );
    settings->set_default_header( "Connection", "close" );

    Service service;
    service.publish( resource );
    service.start( settings );

    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

More in-depth examples can be found in the documentation.

© 2013-2026 Corvusoft Limited, United Kingdom. All rights reserved.

The Restbed framework is dual licensed; See LICENSE for full details.

Please contact [email protected], for support and licensing options including bespoke software development, testing, design consultation, training, mentoring and code review.

Please submit all enhancements, proposals, and defects via the issue tracker.

Restbed is built with GNU Autotools and depends on:

• A C++23 compiler (GCC >= 13, Clang >= 17, AppleClang >= 15)
• Asio (standalone, header-only)
• OpenSSL (optional — required when SSL/TLS support is enabled, on by default)
• Catch2 >= 3.0 (optional — required when the test suite is enabled, on by default)
• autoconf, automake, libtool, pkg-config, make

Install the toolchain and dependencies via your package manager:

Debian / Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install -y \
    autoconf automake libtool pkg-config make g++ \
    libasio-dev libssl-dev catch2

macOS (Homebrew):

brew install autoconf automake libtool pkg-config asio openssl@3 catch2
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="$(brew --prefix openssl@3)/lib/pkgconfig"

Windows (MSYS2 UCRT64, see Windows Build Instructions below):

pacman -S --needed \
    base-devel mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-toolchain \
    mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-asio \
    mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-openssl \
    mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-catch

git clone https://github.com/corvusoft/restbed.git
cd restbed
./autogen.sh
./configure
make
sudo make install
make check

./autogen.sh regenerates configure and supporting scripts via autoreconf -fiv; it only needs to be run from a fresh clone or after editing configure.ac / Makefile.am. Released tarballs ship with configure already generated, so end users can skip straight to ./configure.

Installation honours the standard GNU directory layout — override with ./configure --prefix=..., DESTDIR=..., etc. A restbed.pc file is installed for pkg-config consumers:

pkg-config --cflags --libs restbed

Pass these to ./configure:

Run ./configure --help for the full list, including standard GNU directory variables (--prefix, --libdir, etc.).

The autotools build runs under MSYS2 or Cygwin. Native MSVC support has been removed alongside CMake; dependencies (Asio, OpenSSL, Catch2) are provisioned through the MSYS2 package manager (pacman).

From an MSYS2 UCRT64 shell:

pacman -S --needed \
    base-devel mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-toolchain \
    mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-asio \
    mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-openssl \
    mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-catch

git clone https://github.com/corvusoft/restbed.git
cd restbed
./autogen.sh
./configure
make
make check

This codebase is intended to be as self documenting as possible. We have supplied many examples and test suites to help aid developers.

You can locate the latest design and API documentation here.