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Rust High-Performance Proxy: How lynx-server Reached 100 GitHub Stars

Hi everyone! I’m suxin2017. In this post, I’ll share the journey of my open source project lynx-server reaching 100 GitHub stars, as well as the product design, community operation, and promotion strategies that made it possible.

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Project Overview

Lynx Proxy is a high-performance and flexible proxy service written in Rust, specializing in efficient handling of HTTP/HTTPS and WebSocket traffic. The project leverages Rust's strengths in performance and safety, and integrates popular Rust networking libraries like hyper, axum, and tower. It also offers a modern web management UI and comprehensive visualization features.


Why Did It Get 100 Stars? My Practical Experience

1. Product Strength: Performance & Usability

  • 🚀 High Performance: Powered by Rust, lynx-server efficiently sustains high-concurrency proxy traffic with low resource usage.
  • 🌐 Multi-Protocol Support: Native support for HTTP, HTTPS, and WebSocket to meet most developers’ proxy needs.
  • 💻 Modern Web UI: Clean, intuitive interface with dark mode, request list and tree views for easy traffic analysis.

2. Documentation & Onboarding Experience

Good documentation is key to earning stars.

  • Clear README: The homepage describes features, installation, and quick start instructions.
  • One-click Installer:
  curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/suxin2017/lynx-server/releases/latest/download/lynx-cli-installer.sh | sh
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  • Quick Start:
  lynx-cli
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Start the service with a single command, lowering the entry barrier for new users.

3. Open Source Community

  • Contribution Guide: Encourages community contributions and documents the development/build process.
  • Responsive Issue & PR Handling: Every feedback is taken seriously, increasing engagement.
  • Active Development: Regular updates and a public roadmap keep users excited about the project.

4. Visualization & Interaction Details

  • List View: Makes development and debugging easier.
  • Tree View: Clearly shows traffic data structure.

Tree View Structure Example


Community Promotion: Let More People Discover Your Project

If you want more stars, community promotion is essential. Here are some of my strategies for promoting lynx-server:

  • Technical Content Creation: Write use cases, architecture deep-dives, and tutorials on dev.to, Zhihu, Juejin, and other platforms so developers from various backgrounds can discover and understand your project.
  • Engage in Technical Forums: Actively answer questions in Rust, networking, and proxy-related discussions, and naturally recommend lynx-server.
  • Social Media Promotion: Share project updates, releases, and highlights on Twitter, WeChat, and other social platforms to attract followers.
  • Collaborate with Other Projects: Reach out to related project maintainers to explore integrations and cross-promotion.
  • Community Events & Live Streams: Join online tech talks and livestreams to explain your project’s concepts and applications, increasing interactivity.

Tip: Promotion is a long-term effort. Focus on valuable content and influence—avoid spamming or intrusive advertising.


How You Can Do the Same

  1. Clear Positioning: Make it obvious what problem you solve and who your project is for.
  2. Lower the Barrier to Entry: One-click install, single-command start.
  3. Polish Docs and UI: Make it not only easy to use, but also visually appealing.
  4. Consistent Maintenance & Responsiveness: An active community attracts more stars.
  5. Proactive Sharing & Promotion: Create content to draw in like-minded developers and broaden your project’s reach.

Conclusion

lynx-server’s journey from 1 to 100 stars was built step by step. I’ll continue to improve it, and I welcome everyone to contribute and make this Rust proxy even better!

  • Project: lynx-server
  • Feel free to connect and star the repo!

"Every star is a recognition of your work—and the motivation to keep going!"

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