install

Additional install commands

macOS

Homebrewverified · 100%

brew install fcgi

provider-native install command

overview

Package summary

Protocol for interfacing interactive programs with a web server

Project links

Commands and aliases

cgi-fcgi

history

Project history and usage

FastCGI is an open extension to CGI that keeps application processes alive and communicates with them over a simple protocol, avoiding the one-process-per-request model of traditional CGI.

The `fcgi` package is the FastCGI Developer's Kit: headers, libraries, examples, language integration material, and the `cgi-fcgi` tool used to develop and test FastCGI applications.

Project history

Open Market published the FastCGI 1.0 specification on April 29, 1996. The spec defines the interface between FastCGI applications and supporting web servers from the application's perspective.

The Developer's Kit dates to the same 1996 Open Market codebase. The current FastCGI-Archives repository preserves a fork of the original FastCGI SDK after the historical FastCGI.com site disappeared.

Adoption history

FastCGI was adopted because it offered CGI's language-agnostic deployment model without forcing every request to spawn a new process. The official docs include integration material for Perl, Tcl, and Java as well as C library documentation.

Its long-term package-manager role is legacy infrastructure: modern web stacks often hide FastCGI behind application servers or language-specific process managers, but `fcgi` remains the small C SDK and bridge tool that many systems keep available for compatibility.

How it is used

Developers use the library to write FastCGI applications that accept requests over a listening socket and exchange FastCGI records with a web server. The SDK includes examples, headers, `libfcgi`, and language-specific documentation.

The `cgi-fcgi` command is useful for development and testing because it can bridge CGI-style invocation and FastCGI applications, including when a web server lacks direct FastCGI support.

Why package nerds care

FastCGI is package-nerd archaeology that still matters: a 1990s web protocol whose ABI, headers, and helper binary continue to be packaged because web servers, wrappers, and legacy applications still know how to speak it.

The package is also the dependency behind tools like fcgiwrap, making it part of the compatibility layer that lets old CGI programs survive behind newer web-server configurations.

Timeline

1996: Open Market published FastCGI specification 1.0.
1996: The FastCGI Developer's Kit documented libraries, examples, language integrations, and `cgi-fcgi`.
2016: The FastCGI-Archives/fcgi2 GitHub repository was created to preserve the SDK after the original FastCGI.com material moved offline.

Related projects

CGI is the predecessor interface that FastCGI extends.
fcgiwrap, spawn-fcgi, web-server FastCGI modules, and language runtimes such as PHP-FPM are part of the surrounding FastCGI ecosystem.

Sources

security posture

Risk level: blue

broad file, network, media, or database tool signal.

Risk classifier

blue risk · medium confidence · tool

Why

broad file, network, media, or database tool signal

Signals

text:server

Install behavior

No Homebrew bottle metadata was recorded.

Recommended review

Before unattended agent use, check whether the tool reads plaintext credentials, writes remote state, publishes artifacts, or shells out to plugins.

executables

Installed executables

Command	Kind	Exposure	Note
`cgi-fcgi`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.

freshness

Version and freshness

These signals separate page generation age, package-manager activity, and upstream release comparison. Version lag is warned only when an evidence URL and comparable versions are present.

page generated2026-08-03

manager version2.4.7

manager updated

local dataunknown

upstreamnot available

latest detectednot detected

okNo freshness warnings were generated.

install metadata

Package metadata

Package key	brew:fcgi
Version	2.4.7
Package manager	Homebrew
Homepage	https://fastcgi-archives.github.io/
Repository	https://github.com/FastCGI-Archives/fcgi2
Bottle	not recorded
Service	none declared

package graph

Links come from deterministic package relationships, av.db category and tag curation, ecosystem matches, and package hub membership.

source trail

Generated from repository data

This page is generated by av-web from the private package SQLite artifact built by scripts/generate-pkg-sqlite.py.

Combined YAML source

View the package source record on GitHub.

combined/fcgi.yml

Used sources

Geiger risk classifier
Nucleus package database
curated package history
pkgdb category and tag curation

Install fcgi with Homebrew