Pistache is a high-performance REST framework written in C++17 that provides an HTTP server toolkit with a clear API for building RESTful services.
The framework addresses the need for a modern, efficient way to build REST APIs in C++ without sacrificing code clarity. It offers an entirely pure-C++ implementation that abstracts away low-level HTTP and networking details, allowing developers to focus on API logic. The toolkit handles request routing, response serialization, and server lifecycle management through a straightforward API design.
Pistache suits projects where performance and type safety matter, particularly microservices and embedded systems where C++ is already the language of choice. It runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, and BSD systems. The framework integrates with standard C++ tooling and includes support for features like compression through brotli and zstd, JSON handling via RapidJSON, and TLS through OpenSSL. The README references a benchmark comparison showing how Pistache performs relative to other C++ REST frameworks, though it does not make explicit claims about superiority. Developers should be aware that API documentation is incomplete and the project actively seeks volunteers to improve it.
The project maintains an active communication channel for contributors and users. Development follows a structured approach to versioning, with plans to align the major release version and library interface version after the 1.0 release. The team uses Meson as its build system and includes comprehensive testing infrastructure with Googletest.
