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Rust web framework · by Actix team

Actix Web

A fast, type-safe Rust web framework with HTTP/2, WebSockets, streaming, compression, TLS and built-in middleware, and a long record in TechEmpower benchmarks.

Visit actix.rs ↗ Alternatives Open source Open source Self-hostable
Actix Web homepage
§1

Overview

Actix Web is a Rust web framework that its maintainers describe as pragmatic and extremely fast. It is typed from request to response: extractors pull JSON, URL-encoded forms, path segments and state into handler arguments, and handlers return any type implementing the Responder trait.

More comes built in than with most minimal Rust frameworks: HTTP/1.x and HTTP/2, streaming and pipelining, keep-alive and slow request handling, client and server WebSockets, transparent compression (brotli, gzip, deflate, zstd), multipart streams, static assets, TLS through OpenSSL or Rustls, and middleware for logging, sessions and CORS. It integrates with the awc HTTP client.

The project cites the TechEmpower benchmarks as evidence that it is one of the fastest web frameworks. Examples cover Diesel, SQLite, Postgres, MongoDB, Tera and Askama templates and WebSocket chat.

Actix Web 4 is the current major line and needs stable Rust 1.88 or newer. Some features are marked experimental and may break in any release. The repository dates from 2017 and is dual licensed under MIT and Apache-2.0.

§2

Pricing and plans

Free and open source under MIT or Apache-2.0, at your choice. No paid edition.

Source: actix.rs/ · prices as published, excluding tax.

§3

What it does

Extractors and responders
Typed extraction of JSON, forms and paths; flexible Responder return types.
HTTP/2 and WebSockets
HTTP/1.x, HTTP/2, and client and server WebSockets.
Compression
Transparent brotli, gzip, deflate and zstd.
TLS
OpenSSL or Rustls.
Middleware
Logger, sessions, CORS and custom middleware.
Streaming and multipart
Streaming bodies, pipelining and multipart uploads.
§4

Strengths and limitations

Strengths

  • Consistently near the top of TechEmpower benchmarks
  • Many HTTP features built in
  • Stable 4.x major line
  • Dual MIT/Apache licence

Limitations

  • Requires Rust 1.88 or newer
  • Features marked experimental may have breaking changes in any release
  • Its own middleware system means tower middleware does not plug in directly
  • No ORM or project structure; examples show how to add Diesel or others
§5

Who it suits

Good for

  • Performance-critical Rust APIs
  • Services needing WebSockets, streaming and compression built in
  • Teams comfortable with Rust

Look elsewhere if

  • Teams new to Rust needing to ship quickly
  • Projects that want to reuse tower middleware (see Axum)
§6

Alternatives to Actix Web

Tool From Free option Stages
Ruby on Rails Full-stack Ruby web framework
— Open source
Fastify High-performance Node.js web framework
— Open source
Laravel Batteries-included PHP framework
$5/mo Open source
Django Batteries-included Python web framework
— Open source
NestJS Structured TypeScript server framework
$12/mo Open source
FastAPI Python API framework
$20/mo Free tier

All backend frameworks →

§7

Questions

Is Actix Web fast?

The project points to TechEmpower benchmarks, where it ranks among the fastest frameworks.

Which Rust version does Actix Web need?

Stable Rust 1.88 or newer.

Does Actix Web support WebSockets?

Yes, both client and server WebSockets.

What licence is Actix Web under?

MIT or Apache-2.0, at your option.

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