Lightweight, fast and alternative web framework.
About · Documentation · Nuget

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About

Swytch is a web framework written in Csharp. It is lightweight, fast and offers an alternative and refreshing way to author web services like REST APIs and web applications.It provides an expressive routing API, built-in templating with RazorLight, support for asynchronous job processing using Actors, and seamless database integration with Dapper.

I started Swytch as an educational project to explore C# as a language and to experiment with a lightweight alternative for building simple web services or hacking on personal projects without the overhead of ASP.NET/ASP.NET CORE. It has been a rewarding experience, and I learned a lot along the way. I work on Swytch in my spare time, balancing it with my professional life and the other million things I have on my desk. It took over a year to get Swytch to a point where I felt it was stable enough to share. Since I only work on this when I can afford to, I kindly ask for patience when raising issues or reporting bugs. I'll address them as soon as I can.

Check out the documentation for more information

Check out the devlogs and architectural notes

Features

• Minimal and Expressive Routing – Define routes and handler methods easily with a clean API.
• Path Parameters – Extract parameters directly from the URL for dynamic routing.
• Templating with RazorLight – Supports Razor-based templating for rendering dynamic content.
• Precompiled Templates – Improves performance by precompiling Razor templates before execution.
• Built-in Lightweight ORM – Includes Dapper for efficient database interaction.
• Asynchronous Job Processing – Allows users to execute background and non-blocking tasks using Actors.
• Resilient Request Handling – Exceptions occurring during a request are isolated to that request, preventing failures from affecting the entire application.
• Middleware Support – Extend functionality by adding middleware for request/response processing.
• Fast and Lightweight – Designed for high performance with minimal overhead.

📦 Installation

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Install Swytch via NuGet:

 dotnet add package Swytch

Swytch supports .NET 6+.

Basic Swytch Api

Create a basic Swytch application:

//create a swytchapp
var app = new SwytchApp();

//set up route 
app.AddAction("GET", "/", async (context) => {
    context.ToOk("Hello from Swytch!");
});

//start app
await swytchApp.Listen(); 

Run the application and navigate to http://localhost:8080/.

Routing & Handlers

Define dynamic routes with path parameters:

app.AddAction("GET","/users/{id}", async (context) => { //logic here });
app.AddAction("POST","/users/{id}", async (context) => { //logic here });

//Register multiple HTTP methods to one handler
app.AddAction("GET,POST","/users/{id}", async (context) => { //logic here });

Middleware

Register middleware

app.AddMiddleware(async (context) =>
{
    Console.WriteLine("Incoming request...");
});

Templating with RazorLight

Use RazorLight to render dynamic template file:

await app.RenderTemplate(context, "templateKey", Books);

Background Jobs (Actors)

Execute background tasks using Actors:

//register your actor
ActorPool.InitializeActorPool(serviceProvider);
ActorPool.Register<TalkingActor>();


//Execute task using actor
 ActorPool.Tell<TalkingActor,string>("Home");

Database Integration (Dapper)

Query databases easily using Dapper:

//Add data store 
swytchApp.AddDatastore("your_connection_string", DatabaseProviders.SQLite);

//execute query
 using IDbConnection dbConnection = app.GetConnection(DatabaseProviders.SQLite);
 var users = await dbConnection.QueryAsync<User>("SELECT * FROM Users");

Contributing

Contributions are highly valued, whether it's proposing new features, suggesting improvements, or reporting bugs. Your input helps make Swytch even better—feel free to submit a PR!