Restbed

June 7, 2026 · View on GitHub

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

Features

Feature	Description
WebSockets	Full-duplex communication channels over a single TCP connection.
Server-Sent Events	Server-Sent Events enables efficient server-to-client streaming of text-based event data—e.g., real-time notifications or updates generated on the server.
Comet	Long polling model to allow long-held HTTP requests for pushing data from the server to client.
SSL/TLS	Secure over the wire communication allowing you to transmit private data online.
HTTP Pipelining	A technique allowing multiple HTTP requests to be sent on a single TCP connection without waiting for the corresponding responses.
Path Parameters	Annotate URIs with custom path parameters such as resource keys, revisions, etc...
Query Parameters	Automated query parameter parsing.
Logging	Customise how and where log entries are created.
Multi-Path Resources	Give a resource multiple paths for improved readability.
Customisable Methods	Add your own custom HTTP methods.
Compression	Adaptability to address any form of compression GZip, Deflate, etc...
Encoding	Adaptability to address any form of encoding UTF-32, ASCII, etc...
IPv4/IPv6	Internet Protocol Version 4/6 Network Support.
Architecture	Asynchronous single or multi-threaded architecture, capable of addressing the C10K problem.
Converters	Built-in Path, Query, and Header conversions for primary data-types.
Authentication	Separate Service and/or Resource level authentication.
Error Handling	Separate Service and/or Resource level error handling.
Address Binding	Bind HTTP and/or HTTPS services to separate IP addresses.
Signal Handling	Capture OS generated process signals.
Documentation	High-quality documentation covering the architecture and API.
Compliance	Flexibility to address HTTP 1.0/1.1+ compliance.
Mature	Secure, Stable, and extensively tested since 2013.
Community	Active, vibrant and energetic open source community.
Support	Commercial support is available from Corvusoft.

Example

#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.

License

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

Support

Please contact sales@corvusoft.com, 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.

Prerequisites

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

Build

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

Build Options

Pass these to ./configure:

Option	Description	Default
`--disable-ssl`	Disable SSL/TLS support (drops the OpenSSL dependency).	Enabled
`--enable-ipc`	Enable Unix domain socket support.	Disabled
`--disable-tests`	Skip building the Catch2 test suite (drops the Catch2 dependency).	Enabled
`--enable-shared` / `--disable-shared`	libtool: produce a shared library.	Enabled
`--enable-static` / `--disable-static`	libtool: produce a static library.	Enabled
`--with-asio-include=DIR`	Path to ASIO headers if not on the default include search path.	—

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

Windows Build Instructions

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

Documentation

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.

Minimum Requirements

Resource	Requirement
Compiler	C++23 compliant or above
OS	BSD, Linux, Mac OSX, Windows

Contact

Method	Description
support@corvusoft.com	Support related queries.
sales@corvusoft.com	Sale related queries.