Lightning by skylab-inc
A Swift Multiplatform Single-threaded Non-blocking Web and Networking Framework
About Lightning
From the project's README at github.com/skylab-inc/Lightning. Lightly cleaned for readability; for the full source see the upstream repo.
Serverside non-blocking IO in Swift Ask questions in our Slack channel! (formerly Edge)
[](https://travis-ci.org/skylab-inc/Lightning) [](https://codecov.io/gh/skylab-inc/Lightning) [](https://slackin-on-edge.herokuapp.com) Node Lightning is an HTTP Server and TCP Client/Server framework written in Swift and inspired by Node.js. It runs on both OS X and Linux. Like Node.js, Lightning uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model. In the same way that Node.js uses libuv to implement this model, Lightning uses libdispatch.
This makes Lightning fast, efficient, and most crutially single-threaded by default. You simply do not need to worry about locks/mutexes/semaphores/etc if you have server-side state. Of course, Lightning applications can make use of libdispatch to easily offload heavy processing to a background thread if necessary
Health score breakdown
6-dimension composite. See methodology for formula and weights.
Adoption signals
Real-world usage data, pulled from each registry. The bigger the numbers, the more battle-tested the project.
| Signal | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | 310 | github.com/skylab-inc/Lightning |
| GitHub forks | 14 | github.com/skylab-inc/Lightning |
Release & maintenance
Is this project actively maintained, or about to die? Check the recency of last commit and last release.
| Project age | 10.0 years | since May 2016 |
| Last commit | 8.3 years ago | Jan 2, 2018 |
| Releases shipped | 5 | last: 8.5 years ago |
Self-hosting cost across providers
Detected requirements: 4GB RAM, 40GB disk minimum. Cheapest plan per provider that meets the requirement.
| Provider | Plan | Specs | Monthly | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| hetzner | CAX11 | 2c · 4GB · 40GB | $4.13 USD | Deploy → |
| vultr | VC2 | 1c · 1GB · 25GB | $5 USD | Deploy → |
| linode | Nanode 1GB | 1c · 1GB · 25GB | $5.12 USD | Deploy → |
| digitalocean | Basic Regular 1GB | 1c · 1GB · 25GB | $6 USD | Deploy → |
What people say on Hacker News
Ready to self-host Lightning?
Spin up a hetzner CAX11 (4GB RAM, 40GB disk) for $4.13/mo and follow the project's official install docs.
Data last refreshed May 7, 2026.
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