Middleware

Middleware is a (loosely defined) term for any software or service that enables the parts of a system to communicate and manage data. It is the software that handles communication between components and input/output, so developers can focus on the specific purpose of their application.

In server-side web application frameworks, the term is often more specifically used to refer to pre-built software components that can be added to the framework's request/response processing pipeline, to handle tasks such as database access.