Should we replace http-proxy with a better maintained dependency?

[johnhunter]

Vite uses http-party/node-http-proxy to provide server proxying. We have had issues that required us to override functionality in Vite config as node-http-proxy is not addressing issues or merging PRs, e.g #16558 and #17563.

The node-http-proxy project has a long history and is used by numerous projects but it does not appear to be actively maintained and past attempts at revitalising it seem to have failed. There are currently 507 issues and 105 open PRs including several security related ones.

Proxies are such a niche thing that I don't think the Vite project should take on a rewrite but I wonder if we should consider moving to an alternative node based proxy. https://github.com/fastify/fastify-http-proxy seems to be modern and well maintained with a commercial sponsor.

The question came up in discussions about Vite 3 but it might be worth revisiting.

I propose

Replace the node-http-proxy dependency with fastify-http-proxy

Open issues as I see it are:

• Due diligence on the replacement dependency (are there better alternatives?)
• How close are the features? is it a drop in replacement?
• A plan for any config changes required in Vite (do we need to deprecate any)?
• Plan for Beta testing and rollout
• Can we backout / revert if we have problems

Thanks!