# Redbean

9 Hacker News commenters recommended Redbean and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Recommended as a single-file, portable web server that runs from one executable; critics note outdated TLS.

## Why people recommend it

- Single executable runs across platforms (3 comments): "Another way to achieve something like this is Cosmopolitan C Compiler, Actually Portable Executables." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49726475)) "I love APE and redbean and your articles on the code trickery you get up to." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48318818)) "a very high-performance APE-packaged web server" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48360969))
- Impressive low-level engineering tricks (3 comments): "I love APE and redbean and your articles on the code trickery you get up to." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48318818)) "I think most people don't realize just how crazy this is." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49465077)) "These projects are fascinating" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48429033))

## What people warn about

- TLS certificates expired; removed from GitHub (1 comments): "the tls certs are expired and it seems scrubbed off of github" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50040151))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [nginx](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nginx.md): 130 recommend
- [Caddy](https://hackerapproved.com/p/caddy.md): 114 recommend
- [FrankenPHP](https://hackerapproved.com/p/frankenphp.md): 15 recommend
- [Kestrel web server](https://hackerapproved.com/p/kestrel.md): 8 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Redbean", https://hackerapproved.com/p/redbean/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).