Community LTS Fork · since April 2026

FreeUnit

Unit application server, continued by the community.
Free as in freedom.

The original Unit repository was archived in October 2025.
The maintainers noted: "A new maintainer is desired." FreeUnit is that maintainer.
Get Started → 🐙 View on GitHub team@freeunit.org
In the lineage of
Angie freenginx MariaDB LibreOffice OpenSSH
— when corporations step back, community takes over

Why FreeUnit

01
🐘 PHP 8.4 + 8.5
First-class support for modern PHP runtimes. The primary motivation for this fork.
02
🔒 Security Backports
Active security maintenance. No more unaddressed CVEs in archived repositories.
03
📦 Stable Releases
Predictable LTS release cycle. Production deployments need guarantees.
04
🤝 Community Governed
No corporate control. Decisions made by active contributors.
05
🌐 WebAssembly
Native wasmtime runtime. WASM modules run alongside PHP, Go, and Node.js apps.
06
🚀 Current Runtimes
Go 1.26, Node.js 24, PHP 8.5. Runtime versions tracked and updated with each release.

Installation

# Build from source
git clone https://github.com/freeunitorg/freeunit
cd freeunit
./configure --openssl --otel
make
sudo make unitd-install
Official packages are coming soon.
Docker images are available — see GitHub Packages.
PHP 8.5 support requires FreeUnit — not available in the archived upstream.

OpenTelemetry

# Configure via Unit JSON API
{
  "settings": {
    "telemetry": {
      "endpoint": "http://localhost:4317/v1/traces",
      "protocol": "grpc",
      "sampling_ratio": 1.0,
      "batch_size": 20
    }
  }
}

Project Status

freeunit.org + freeunit.dev registered
April 2026
GitHub org freeunitorg created
5 repos
Unit 1.35.3 fork — all branches
active
PHP 8.5 working build
1.37.0
Docker images
1.37.0
CI/CD pipeline
active
unitctl binaries
1.37.0
Official packages
coming soon
F5 repository transfer
in negotiation

Support Policy (EOL)

Runtimes are supported for 1 year after upstream EOL.
OS versions are supported for 3 years after upstream EOL.
Dates tracked at endoflife.date. Versions within 6 months of removal receive security patches only.
Runtimes
Runtime Version Upstream EOL FreeUnit support
Go1.25 †Aug 2026Aug 2027
Go1.26Feb 2027Feb 2028
Go1.27Aug 2027Aug 2028
Java (JSC)17 (LTS)Oct 2027Oct 2028
Java (JSC)21 (LTS)Dec 2029Dec 2030
Java (JSC)25 (LTS)Sep 2031Sep 2032
Java (JSC)26 †Sep 2026Sep 2027
Java (JSC)27Mar 2027Mar 2028
Node.js20 (LTS) †Apr 2026Apr 2027
Node.js22 (LTS)Apr 2027Apr 2028
Node.js24 (LTS)Apr 2028Apr 2029
Node.js26 (LTS)Apr 2029Apr 2030
Perl5.38 †Jul 2026Jul 2027
Perl5.40Jun 2027Jun 2028
Perl5.42Jul 2028Jul 2029
Perl5.44Jul 2029Jul 2030
PHP8.3Dec 2027Dec 2028
PHP8.4Dec 2028Dec 2029
PHP8.5Dec 2029Dec 2030
Python3.12Oct 2028Oct 2029
Python3.13Oct 2029Oct 2030
Python3.14Oct 2030Oct 2031
Ruby3.3Mar 2027Mar 2028
Ruby3.4Mar 2028Mar 2029
Ruby4.0Mar 2029Mar 2030
WebAssembly—no EOL—
Operating Systems
OS Version Upstream EOL FreeUnit support
Fedora40 †2025-052028-05
Fedora41 †2025-122028-12
Fedora42 †2026-052029-05
Fedora432026-122029-12
Fedora442027-062030-06
CentOS Stream92027-052030-05
CentOS Stream102030-052033-05
Amazon Linux2 †2026-062029-06
Amazon Linux20232029-062032-06
Ubuntu LTS22.042027-062030-06
Ubuntu LTS24.042029-052032-05
Ubuntu LTS26.042031-052034-05
Debian11 bullseye †2024-082027-08
Debian12 bookworm †2026-072029-07
Debian13 trixie2028-082031-08
RHEL82029-052032-05
RHEL92032-052035-05
RHEL102035-052038-05
Alpine3.20 †2026-042029-04
Alpine3.212026-112029-11
Alpine3.222027-052030-05
Alpine3.232027-112030-11
Alpine3.242028-062031-06
† Version has passed upstream EOL. A runtime stays in FreeUnit's 1-year grace period, an OS in its 3-year grace period.

EOL.md on GitHub →

📰 Latest News

04 Oct 2026
Unit 1.37.0 Released
Byte-range and conditional requests for static files; certificate replacement without a restart; hardening of the messages between Unit's processes; Accept-Encoding negotiation fixes; a --hardening configure option. Five security advisories.
28 Aug 2026
Unit 1.36.1 Released
Peer-message hardening across the port protocol; chunked trailers and response-length correctness; OpenTelemetry export health in /status and a leaner traced request path; session tickets fixed on no-deprecated builds; OpenSSL 1.1.1 floor and 4.0 support.
16 Jul 2026
Unit 1.36.0 Released
Security and correctness hardening — config NUL/empty rejection, rootfs mount TOCTOU, proxy response-smuggling, libunit/Java bounds; SIGQUIT graceful stop; wasmtime 36. Two advisories: GHSA-768w-qrh2-jjvh and GHSA-g6v8-r577-76jm.

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Report a bug →
✉️ Contact
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🤝 Contributing
CONTRIBUTING.md →
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