What is blade?

Blade is a lightweight web framework for Java that makes it quick to build websites and web APIs without pulling in a large stack of dependencies. The entire library weighs under 500 kilobytes, which is small by Java standards. It runs on top of Netty, a high-performance networking library, and targets Java 8 and above. The main idea is to reduce the amount of setup and boilerplate code a developer needs to write. A working web server can be started in a single line of Java: define a route, provide a handler, and call start. Routes follow the REST pattern, meaning you define what happens when a browser or app makes a GET, POST, PUT, or DELETE request to a specific URL. Parameters can come from the URL path, query strings, form submissions, or request bodies, and the framework provides clear ways to read each type. Blade also includes built-in support for template engines so you can return HTML pages, basic authentication, cookie and session handling, file uploads and downloads, scheduled tasks using cron-style expressions, and a middleware system for adding logic that runs before or after route handlers. It has some security defaults built in, including protection against CSRF and XSS, two common web attack patterns. Deployment is straightforward: build the project into a single JAR file and run it directly. No separate application server is needed. The project is open source under the Apache 2.0 license and available through Maven Central.