hostapd (host access point daemon) is a user space daemon software enabling a network interface card to act as an access point and authentication server.

Jouni Malinen's hostapd is a user space daemon for access point and authentication servers.

The current version supports Linux (Host AP, MadWifi,[2] Prism54[3] and some of the drivers which use the kernel's mac80211 subsystem), QNX, FreeBSD (net80211), and DragonFlyBSD.

[4] OpenBSD's hostapd is a user space daemon that helps to improve roaming and monitoring of OpenBSD-based wireless networks.

It is kept as close as possible to the original open source release, but with OWL specific packaging and defaults.