At Fortix, we’re always looking for ways to improve performance and provide a seamless experience for our users. Recently, we’ve made some updates to our infrastructure to boost our web interface speed, enhance DNS performance, and deepen our commitment to the open-source community. Here’s a look at the changes we made and how they’re benefiting both our system and our users.
Building a Faster Web Interface
When we first built our infrastructure, we prioritized using well-supported software. For instance, we chose the Fabio project to manage our ingress traffic, and for a while, it served us well. But over time, we noticed that development on Fabio had slowed. When a HTTP/2 protocol issue popped up and remained unpatched, we realized it was time to explore alternatives.
That’s where the Caddy server came in. We were already using Caddy extensively in our cluster. This Go-based web server offers outstanding support for HTTP/2 and even HTTP/3, which are essential for improved throughput and speed. Plus, Caddy allows developers to create custom plugins—an opportunity we embraced with excitement.
Our team had been honing their Go programming skills, developing tools like Knot, which set the stage for us to create a new Caddy plugin specifically tailored for our needs. This plugin dynamically tracks instances within our cluster and configures Caddy to route traffic from domain names to the correct backend workers.
By leveraging both HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 through Caddy, we’ve significantly enhanced the speed of our web interface, ensuring an overall smoother experience for our users.
Why Open-Source Matters
At Fortix, we use a range of open-source tools, so it only felt right to contribute back! That’s why we decided to release our Caddy ingress controller as an open-source project under the Apache 2.0 license—the same license Caddy uses. You can check it out here: Caddy-Consul-Ingress on GitHub.
Open-sourcing this tool wasn’t just about giving back; it also helps us build a stronger, more robust product. The more developers who use our code, the higher the chances of catching and fixing issues before they impact our clients.
Open-source development fosters collaboration and innovation, benefiting everyone in the community, including Fortix users.
We’re proud to make this contribution and excited about the enhancements and efficiencies it can inspire for others.
Optimized DNS Performance
Behind the scenes, our cluster handles an enormous number of DNS queries daily. Every time a page loads or an operation occurs within Fortix, a DNS query is triggered—such as connecting to a database. Individually, these queries take only a fraction of a second, but they add up quickly and can create unnecessary overhead.
At the beginning of 2025, we rolled out new software across our worker nodes to address this challenge. This system optimizes DNS lookups, maintaining up-to-date information about commonly used DNS queries. The result? A massive reduction in the load on our core DNS servers—traffic dropped to just 20% of its previous level. Better still, query times are now effectively 0 milliseconds, typically clocking in at under 1ms.
For our users, this translates to a faster, smoother experience with Fortix. Whether loading a new page or performing actions in the app, everything happens more quickly, enhancing productivity and satisfaction.
Moving Forward Together
These updates—improving the web interface, enhancing DNS performance, and contributing to the open-source community—are helping us build a more efficient and connected system. By staying committed to innovation and collaboration, we’re not only creating a better experience for our users but also supporting the broader tech community.
At Fortix, we’re not just about technology. We’re about building something bigger, something everyone can be part of. Stay tuned for more updates as we continue this exciting journey!
