Agate (Gemini Server)

★★★★★

Agate is a simple Gemini Protocol server. It’s a single binary, needs only minimal configuration, and sets up TLS certs for you. It only serves static files, but you can also enable multiple hostnames, directory listings and custom headers if you want to, so you can redirect pages that have moved or use it as a download server.

It’s fast. It’s stable. I’ve been running my Gemini capsule on it for three years* and I don’t think it’s ever crashed. Updates are a matter of downloading the latest release from GitHub, killing the old process, and launching the new one. No need to mess with Docker or anything like that unless you want to.

If you’re reading the Gemini version of this review, it’s serving the page right now!

Since I don’t have root on the VPS I’m running it on, I can’t set up a proper system service, but I can add cron jobs, so it’s easy enough to schedule one for @reboot pointing to my launch script.

Running a Gemini Server on a VPS Without Root

The Gemini Protocol as a whole does support dynamically-generated pages and simple interactions, and there are other servers that can handle both.