Life & fun · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Wd-40, a static webserver with automatic hot-reloads
It works by injecting a websocket script which listens for file changes. The filechanges are detected using the go fsnotify package, which in turn uses the different OS's equivalent to inotify. I basically got bored with alt-tabbing and refresing when developing 'vanilla-js'. The hot-reload in the modern frameworks are very nice, so figured I'd recreate it.
WD-40 is a static webserver that automatically reloads web pages when files change. It works by injecting a WebSocket script that monitors the file system for updates using the OS's native file notification system. The… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Wd-40, a static webserver with automatic hot-reloads launched in 2024; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
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A CLI development tool for WebSocket APIs. Contribute to eliihen/wsta development by creating an account on GitHub.
2016 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Embeddable session replay infrastructure on rrweb, the open source standard. Unbranded SDK, ingest on your domain, replay through your API. Free tier included.
2018 · rrweb.io · its alternatives →
- 3AU
websocketd is a single binary that wraps a command-line program and serves it over a WebSocket. Your program reads lines from stdin and writes lines to stdout.
2015 · websocketd.com · its alternatives →
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A modular web framework for C, inspired by kernel modules. Dynamically upload and compile C code at runtime to build REST APIs, WebSocket services, and more. Includes support for JSON (Jansson), SQLite, OpenSSL, and streaming large data efficiently. - joexbayer/c-web-modules
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
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This is ymawky, a static file web server for MacOS written entirely in ARM64 assembly. It supports GET, PUT, DELETE, HEAD, and OPTIONS requests, and supports Range: bytes=X-Y headers (which allows scrubbing for video streaming). It decodes percent-encoded URLs, strictly enforces docroot, serves custom error pages for any HTTP error response, supports directory listing, and has (some) mitigations against slowloris-like attacks. I’ve also written a more detailed writeup here: https://imtomt.github.io/ymawky/
May 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
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We'd love to share our work with you: Restate, a system for workflows-as-code (durable execution). With SDKs in JS/Java/Kotlin and a lightweight runtime built in Rust/Tokio. https://github.com/restatedev/ https://restate.dev/ It is free and open, SDKs are MIT-licensed, runtime permissive BSL (basically just the minimal Amazon defense). We worked on that for a bit over a year. A few points I think are worth mentioning: - Restate's runtime is a single binary, self-contained, no dependencies aside from a durable disk. It contains basically a…
2024 · restate.dev · its alternatives →
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ServBay▲399Hello HN, I’m one of the creators of ServBay. I built this because I got tired of the cognitive load required just to start coding. On my Mac, it was a fragile mix of Homebrew services and asdf conflicts. On Windows, managing PATH variables and fighting with Docker Desktop's resource usage was equally frustrating. I missed the simplicity of the MAMP/XAMPP era, but I needed to support modern stacks (Go, Rust, Node, etc.). What it is: ServBay is a native local development environment for both macOS and Windows. It is not a wrapper around Docker or VMs. It bundles everything you need into…
2024 · servbay.com · its alternatives →
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Live Reload▲69Live reloading web dev in the browser
2023 · essentialbodycare.net · its alternatives →
- 9DA
Hey HN! I’ve written a bunch of WebSocket servers over the years to do simple things like state synchronization, WebRTC signaling, and notifying a client when a backend job was run. I realized that if I had a simple way to create a private, temporary, mini-redis that the client could talk to directly, it would save a lot of time. So we created DriftDB. In addition to the open source server that you can run yourself, we also provide https://jamsocket.live where you can use an instance we host on Cloudflare’s edge (~13ms round trip latency from my home in NY). You may have seen my…
2023 · driftdb.com · its alternatives →
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This is the entire Firefox browser rendering to a element. Gecko, all UI components, and the Spidermonkey JS engine are all compiled and running in WebAssembly. Here are a few things you might find interesting: - This is fully end to end encrypted! We use the WISP protocol for TCP-over-websockets. - There is a novel WASM->JS JIT for experimental site speedup - This port cost over 25k in opus/fable tokens for debugging and JIT research This was just a fun experiment to push the boundaries of WebAssembly. For a more usable "browser in browser" experience, we also built…
Jul 2026 · developer.puter.com · its alternatives →
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Hello! I got quite some feedback on a web server I'm building, so I'm rewriting the server to be faster and easier to use. I (and maybe some other contributors?) have optimized the web server performance, especially for static file serving and reverse proxying (the last use case I optimized for very recently). I also picked a different configuration format and specification, what I believe is easier to write. Automatic TLS is also enabled by default out of the box, you don't need to even enable it manually, like it was in the original server I was building. Yesterday, I released the first…
2025 · ferron.sh · its alternatives →
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webhook is a lightweight incoming webhook server to run shell commands - adnanh/webhook
2017 · github.com · its alternatives →
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This TypeScript package allows you to safely execute JavaScript code within a WebAssembly sandbox using the QuickJS engine. Perfect for isolating and running untrusted code securely, it leverages the lightweight and fast QuickJS engine compiled to WebAssembly, providing a robust environment for code execution. Features - *Security*: Run untrusted JavaScript code in a safe, isolated environment. - *File System*: Can mount a virtual file system - *Custom Node Modules*: Custom node modules are mountable - *Fetch Client*: Can provide a fetch client to make http(s) calls - *Test-Runner*: Includes…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Or more precisely, my little site maker... It is a personal tool that I thoroughly enjoyed making, and enjoy using to write my website . A caveat before any more; nobody was supposed to promote this insanity. Like, terrible things have been done involving inotify and xdotool. But. It showed up on HN some months ago. That too while it was still, shall we say, fermenting. It got "done" some time thence, and of course one could not let the half-past just be. So here we are, for better or worse. Thank you HN mods for helping me repost! _\\// The README explains all, animated GIFs and…
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
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2022 · blueboat.io · its alternatives →
- 17
A Go web server with built in logging, tracing, health check, and graceful shutdown. It also includes a few demo applications showing the Go HTML temple functionality. - GitHub - photonlines/Go-Web-Server: A Go web server with built in logging, tracing, health check, and graceful shutdown. It also i
2019 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 18
Hi HN! I'm building a JavaScript debugger called Wirebrowser. It combines network inspection, request rewriting, heap snapshots, and live object search. The main experimental feature is BDHS (Breakpoint-Driven Heap Search): it hooks into the JavaScript debugger and automatically captures a heap snapshot at every pause and performs a targeted search for the value or structure of interest. This reveals the moment a value appears in memory and the user-land function responsible for creating it. Another interesting feature is the Live Object Search: it inspects runtime objects (not just…
Dec 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 19
Turn shell commands into web services. Contribute to beefsack/webify development by creating an account on GitHub.
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 20
Hi HN, I'm opening up the beta for IndigoStack. It's a native macOS app which provides a fresh take on how to run all the services you need for local web development. I've been building it for myself as a Laravel & Drupal developer and I'm now looking to get some beta testers on board! Check it out, and don't forget to sign up to the forums to give us your feedback! https://indigostack.app My motivation: Like many developers I've developed a love-hate relationship with the existing options for local development on a Mac. If they're virtualised, you'll often get... * high CPU usage…
2022 · indigostack.app · its alternatives →
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Hi HN - Peter from DBOS here with my co-founder Qian (qianl_cs) Today we want to share our TypeScript library for lightweight durable execution. We’ve been working on it since last year and recently released v2.0 with a ton of new features and major API overhaul. https://github.com/dbos-inc/dbos-transact-ts Durable execution means persisting the execution state of your program while it runs, so if it is ever interrupted or crashes, it automatically resumes from where it left off. Durable execution is useful for a lot of things: - Orchestrating long-running or…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Web Serve▲106"Web Serve" is a simple and easy-to-use application designed for quickly setting up and managing local static servers. Whether you are a developer, designer, content creator, or a regular user, this application can help you create local servers effortlessly for testing, development, or personal use. Key features: - One-click setup for local static servers - Simple and intuitive interface - Supports multiple concurrent servers - SPA mod rewrite feature for frontend developers - Support port forward GitHub: https://github.com/jaywcjlove/web-serve Website:…
2025 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
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- Open source JavaScript library to record and replay the web alternatives
- A Unixy approach to WebSockets alternatives
- A dynamic C (Hot reloading) module-based Web Framework alternatives
- Building a web server in assembly to give my life (a lack of) meaning alternatives
- Restate – Low-latency durable workflows for JavaScript/Java, in Rust alternatives
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →