Show HN: I built a web framework in C

1 month ago 1

Lavandula is a lightweight, fast, and intuitive C web framework designed for building modern web applications quickly. It focuses on simplicity, performance, and productivity, providing all the essentials without the bloat of heavier frameworks.

#include "lavandula.h" // define a route for your app appRoute(home) { return ok("Hello, World"); } int main() { // initialise your app App app = createApp(); // register a route in your app get(&app, "/home", home); // run the app runApp(&app); }

Controller and routing system
HTTP endpoint support (GET, POST, etc)
Controller local/global middleware pipeline
Minimal dependencies (pure C)
Quick project scaffolding via the CLI
Built-in unit testing framework
Environment variable support
Built-in logging
SQLite integration
Built-in JSON library

HTTP JSON body parsing
Session cookies
CORS policy configuration
Lavender ORM
Embedded Lavandula (ELA) HTML templating engine

Rate Limiting
Static file serving
PostgreSL, MySQL integrations, etc
Potential dependency injection framework
Route/Available endpoint listing
JSON model and function scaffolding
- lavu model User name:string age:int
- generates User struct, JSON serialization, CRUD endpoints in user_controller.c
- URL parameter parsing and routing

To install Lavandula, follow these setps.

Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/ashtonjamesd/lavandula.git cd lavandula

Run the install script

You should see the following:

[SUCCESS] 🎉 Lavandula installation completed! Quick Start: lavu new my-project # Create a new project cd my-project lavu run # Run your project Documentation: GitHub: https://github.com/ashtonjamesd/lavandula

Finish

You should now be able to run the Lavu CLI tool. Refer to api.md for how to use Lavu.

Create a new project

Output:

Setting up Lavandula project 'myProject'... -> Created myProject/lavandula.yml -> Created myProject/app/app.c -> Created myProject/app/controllers/home.c -> Created myProject/app/routes.c -> Created myProject/makefile -> Created myProject/tests/tests.c 🎉 Lavandula project 'myProject' setup finished successfully! Next steps: 1. cd myProject 2. lavu run

Your application will run on http://localhost:3000/.