Downstream packaging fork of FreeUnit. It tracks upstream and adds Debian (trixie) package builds plus CI for PHP 8.3 / 8.4 / 8.5 and Python 3.13, and carries a few bug fixes that upstream does not have yet. For the application server itself, issues, and documentation, use upstream. Fork scope and build instructions: FORK.md.
Free as in freedom.
Unit application server, continued by the community.
The original Unit repository was archived in October 2025. The maintainers noted: "A new maintainer is desired." FreeUnit is that maintainer.
Forked from the original Unit project to ensure:
- Long-term security maintenance
- PHP 8.4+ and PHP 8.5+ runtime support
- Predictable release cycle
- Independent, community-driven governance
In the lineage of: freenginx · MariaDB · LibreOffice · OpenSSH — when corporations step back, community takes over.
FreeUnit is a lightweight and versatile open-source server with two primary capabilities:
- serves static media assets
- runs application code in eight languages
Unit compresses several layers of the modern application stack into a potent, coherent solution with a focus on performance, low latency, and scalability. It is intended as a universal building block for any web architecture, regardless of its complexity, from enterprise-scale deployments to your pet's homepage.
Its native RESTful JSON API enables dynamic updates with zero interruptions and flexible configuration, while its out-of-the-box productivity reliably scales to production-grade workloads. We achieve that with a complex, asynchronous, multithreading architecture comprising multiple processes to ensure security and robustness while getting the most out of today's computing platforms.
Images are published to the GitHub Container Registry (GHCR) on every release
and are available for linux/amd64 and linux/arm64.
| Variant | Image |
|---|---|
| minimal | ghcr.io/freeunitorg/freeunit:latest-minimal |
| PHP 8.5 | ghcr.io/freeunitorg/freeunit:latest-php-8.5 |
| PHP 8.4 | ghcr.io/freeunitorg/freeunit:latest-php-8.4 |
| PHP 8.3 | ghcr.io/freeunitorg/freeunit:latest-php-8.3 |
| Python 3.15 | ghcr.io/freeunitorg/freeunit:latest-python-3.15 |
| Python 3.14 | ghcr.io/freeunitorg/freeunit:latest-python-3.14 |
| Python 3.13 | ghcr.io/freeunitorg/freeunit:latest-python-3.13 |
| Python 3.12 | ghcr.io/freeunitorg/freeunit:latest-python-3.12 |
| Node.js 26 | ghcr.io/freeunitorg/freeunit:latest-node-26 |
| Node.js 24 | ghcr.io/freeunitorg/freeunit:latest-node-24 |
| Node.js 22 | ghcr.io/freeunitorg/freeunit:latest-node-22 |
| Go 1.27 | ghcr.io/freeunitorg/freeunit:latest-go-1.27 |
| Go 1.26 | ghcr.io/freeunitorg/freeunit:latest-go-1.26 |
| Go 1.25 | ghcr.io/freeunitorg/freeunit:latest-go-1.25 |
| Ruby 4.0 | ghcr.io/freeunitorg/freeunit:latest-ruby-4.0 |
| Ruby 3.4 | ghcr.io/freeunitorg/freeunit:latest-ruby-3.4 |
| WebAssembly | ghcr.io/freeunitorg/freeunit:latest-wasm |
Full list of variants (including python-3.14, perl-5.40, ruby-3.3, slim
Python variants, etc.) is in the
docker workflow.
FreeUnit master is also built on a schedule for PHP versions that have no release image yet, and published to GHCR only:
| Variant | Built | Image |
|---|---|---|
| PHP 8.6 (RC until 8.6.0) | every night | ghcr.io/freeunitorg/freeunit:nightly-php-8.6 |
| PHP 8.7 (php-src master) | every Monday | ghcr.io/freeunitorg/freeunit:weekly-php-8.7 |
Each build also has a dated tag, for example nightly-php-8.6-20261102.
These images are linux/amd64 only, follow the current development code
of both FreeUnit and PHP, and are not for production. Their labels name
the FreeUnit commit, the base image and, for 8.7, the php-src commit. See
the workflow.
$ docker pull ghcr.io/freeunitorg/freeunit:latest-minimal
$ mkdir /tmp/unit-control
$ docker run -d \
--mount type=bind,src=/tmp/unit-control,dst=/var/run \
--mount type=bind,src=.,dst=/www \
--network host \
ghcr.io/freeunitorg/freeunit:latest-minimal$ git clone https://github.com/freeunitorg/freeunit
$ cd freeunit
$ ./configure --openssl --otel
$ make
$ sudo make unitd-installunitctl streamlines the management of FreeUnit processes
through an easy-to-use command line interface. Download it from the
releases page.
$ tar xzvf unitctl-master-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz
# mv unitctl /usr/local/bin/Save /www/helloworld/index.php:
<?php echo "Hello, PHP on FreeUnit!"; ?>Configure via Unix socket:
# curl -X PUT --data-binary @config.json \
--unix-socket /var/run/control.unit.sock \
http://localhost/config/applications# curl -X PUT -d '{"127.0.0.1:8080": {"pass": "applications/helloworld"}}' \
--unix-socket /var/run/control.unit.sock \
http://localhost/config/listeners$ curl 127.0.0.1:8080
Hello, PHP on FreeUnit!FreeUnit provides first-class PHP 8.4 and PHP 8.5 support — the primary motivation for this fork.
$ docker pull ghcr.io/freeunitorg/freeunit:latest-php-8.5
$ docker pull ghcr.io/freeunitorg/freeunit:latest-php-8.4FreeUnit includes built-in OpenTelemetry support (compiled with --otel):
{
"settings": {
"telemetry": {
"endpoint": "http://localhost:4317/v1/traces",
"protocol": "grpc",
"sampling_ratio": 1.0,
"batch_size": 20
}
}
}./configure --usdt adds static probes for bpftrace, perf and SystemTap.
They trace port messages, the app queue, process starts and requests.
docs/usdt.md lists them, and tools/usdt/ has
bpftrace scripts.
FreeUnit supports running WebAssembly Components (WASI 0.2). For configuration details see the OpenAPI spec.
The OpenAPI specification aims to simplify configuring and integrating FreeUnit deployments and provides an authoritative source of knowledge about the control API.
- Discussions: github.com/freeunitorg/freeunit/discussions
- Issues: github.com/freeunitorg/freeunit/issues
- Website: freeunit.org
- Chat: t.me/freeunit_support
- Contact: team@freeunit.org
- Contributing: see CONTRIBUTING.md
- Security: see SECURITY.md
FreeUnit is distributed under the Apache 2.0 License, same as the original Unit project.
Forked from nginx/unit — original authors retain full credit.