Easiest way to spin up a server

Well, sometimes you just want a server and don't really want to handle node or python in your project. All you need is just a server to serve your site locally.

In moments like these I find Web Server for Chrome very useful. Not only it has simple UI to start with, but it has features that are just too intuitive.

Web Server for Chrome

Follow these steps to start your own light weight development server -

  1. Open Web Server for Chrome
  2. Click on CHOOSE FOLDER option
  3. Select the root folder (directory) you want to serve from. Make sure you have index.html in that root directory
  4. Tada! Now you can access http://127.0.0.1:8887

Getting started with a server was never this easy (change my mind).

Apart from spinning up a lightweight server, Web Server for Chrome is also equipped with some cool features.

A B-52 bomber with different bombs

Some of these features are -

  1. Run in background - Allow the web server to continue running, even if you close this window
  2. Accessible on local network - Make the web server available to other computers on the local area network
  3. Also on internet - Attempt to communicate with the router to open an external port accessible on the internet
  4. Prevent computer from sleeping - If the server is running, prevent the computer from going into sleep mode
  5. Automatically show index.html - If the URL is a directory, automatically show an index.html if it is present and so on...

Being web components fan, I really liked how the app is built using Polymer 1.0 for it's UI. I always appreciate when a project is open source, and Web Server for Chrome certainly deserves that. GitHub link - https://github.com/kzahel/web-server-chrome. Don't forget to star the repo 🌟 😉