Spinner is a free, modular, high-performace, easy-to-use HTTP server software, with support for advanced preparsing of HTML-files.

There are six primary reasons to choose Spinner as your HTTP server:

Non-forking, high performance serving

Spinner is one of the few HTTP servers that don't use any kind of forking. This means that Spinner:

  • Reduces the system load significantly.

  • Makes connections take place much faster.

  • Delivers documents faster.

Modularity

Using Spinner's module interface you can easily extend and customize the functionality of the server.

  • Spinner is built upon modules. By making your own ones, or modifying the default ones, you can replace any aspect of the server's functionality.

  • Modules are a part of the Spinner server process, thus improving both the security and the performance over CGI.

  • Spinner has support for CGI as well as user uLPC-scripts.

By provind both CGI and uLPC-scripts, as well as modules, Spinner extends itself beyond the functionality of most other servers in the market today. It provides a degree of performance and flexibility unavailable in any other server product.

Easy-to-use Install and Administration GUI

Spinner is configured, using a simple WWW based configuration interface. Using your favourite WWW browser, you can:

  • Install, configure and administer the server, using the simple point and click interface.

  • Manage the server from a remote location, on any platform you want (Machintosh, PC, Unix...). All that's needed is a WWW browser with forms support!

  • Read the online documentation, while configuring your Spinner.

Many of the most popular HTTP servers, require the WWW administrator to edit cryptic text files in order to install or modify its configuration. Using Spinner's intuitive configuration interface, less technical users can setup and administer a server.

Virtual Servers

Spinner is built upon virtual servers. You can have any number of virtual servers, unconnected to each other, using different port numbers and/or different IP numbers (ie if your machine has several ethernet interfaces, or if it has support for virtual interfaces).

Advanced HTML preparsing

Spinner has support for advanced preparsing of HTML files, using HTML-like tags, like <accessed>. Among other things, this makes it possible to:

  • Customize pages to look good on many clients at the same time (no more need for "This page is optimized for Netscape").

  • Easily made access-counters.

  • Defining and inserting macros.

  • Inserting files from anywhere in Spinners virtual filesystem. This can for example be used for making sitewide macros, to be used in all files.

  • Adding the name and email address of a user, with correct links to his/her homepage and email.

You can also create and add your own tags, using the module interface (see the Deep Thought module for an example). The possibilities are beyond imagination!

Spinner is free

These days commercial HTTP servers start popping up here and there. This was once completely against the spirit of Internet, but today it's becoming more and more accepted every day. However, Spinner is released under the GPL Licence, thus giving everyone the chance to set up and run a high performance HTTP server for free.