Caddy Server, a web server platform to implement automatic HTTPS, has been acquired by Apilayer. Based in Vienna, Austria, Apilayer is a global provider of cloud-based API and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) brands for developers, startups as well as Fortune 500s with close to 1 million B2B customers worldwide.
Written in the Go programming language, Caddy Server is an open source extensible web server platform that has secured trillions of network connections around the globe. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Matt Holt started building Caddy in 2014 as a way to provide automatic and default HTTPS support for websites. Since then, Mr. Holt and the open-source community has built Caddy to provide “easy, powerful, and dynamic” configuration, with an extensible framework that would provide high levels of resilience.
“I’m pleased to look back now and see that over 300 people have collaborated to make privacy the default for the web,” said Matt Holt. “We’ve raised the bar for similar products and made TLS more accessible and reliable than ever. Working with Ardan Labs and now Apilayer to continue the project has been a great boon to the open-source community.”
“As a developer-centric company, our leading API solutions and products are used to power automation processes for hundreds of thousands of customers, ranging from small websites, SMBs, all the way to Fortune 500 enterprises. The acquisition of Caddy brings us one step closer to the developer community, and gives us the opportunity to continue building on the innovative platform that the Caddy team has developed,” said Julian Zehetmayr, Founder & CEO of Apilayer.
Web Server: HTTPS by Default
In 2015, Caddy became one of the first web server platforms to implement automatic HTTPS. It obtains and automatically renews TLS certificates for all sites using Let’s Encrypt while using HTTPS by default. Caddy has since been downloaded over 30 million times and served trillions of HTTP(S) requests. Version 2 was released in May 2020.
“Caddy’s innovative technology and thriving open-source community were one of the most attractive elements in this partnership,” added Julian Zehetmayr. “Caddy will remain a separate and independent open-source brand and will continue to be directed by its original author, Matt Holt. Apilayer is committed to continued innovation, increased investment, and support for the project over the years to come.”
