3 ms·

signs that things might not be that easy, i'd say that the answer is rather "actix-web". axum has tokio's momentum, but a much shorter track record than actix.

nicoburns 4y ago
So "web servers" is a particularly competitive category and there are number of options that are all solid choices. For most categories I have 1 or 2 options with 1 recommended. For web servers I have 6: axum, actix-web, warp, rocket, tide, and poem. With a couple of sentences for each explaining why you might or might not want to choose that option. For me Axum should be the default recommendation because it's the least quirky option. It's also a very thin layer on top of hyper, and built by the tokio team, both of which have a very long track record. Actix-web is a fine choice, but it's a bit of an odd duck in things like not being based on hyper, which makes it a little harder to integrate with the rest of the ecosystem.
- dureuill 4y ago
  thanks, i appreciate the detailed response. I do believe, though, that "least quirky", while definitively important, is not the most deciding factor here. Axum is very young (was announced <1y ago), it has good momentum, is based on hyper and built by the tokio team. On the other hand, it has few actual projects built with it, I couldn't find a guide for it like actix or even Rocket have (it has some documentation in its docsrs documentation, but it is pretty minimal). Crucial questions like how to handle configuration, integration with database, autoreload, are left to the examples at best. I have no doubt that these things will come if the framework matures. I'm just questioning if it should be the default choice right now, as opposed to in a year. (Btw, I would absolutely recommend against Rocket right now, even though API wise it clicked the best with me, until it gets more maintainers and development resumes)
  - nicoburns 4y ago
    That's definitely a fair point on the documentation for actix-web being better (and rocket, but I agree with you on Rocket's maintenance status being problematic). Once I've got my site into a launchable state, my intention is to open up contributions on the github repo so that we can capture the wisdom of the community from all it's diverse set of perspectives. I definitely don't have all the answers myself.
bsder 4y ago
A curated list doesn't have to be "The Best(tm)" in every choice. It just has to recommend one of the top 3 for every choice and never recommend something that sucks.

nicoburns 4y ago

So "web servers" is a particularly competitive category and there are number of options that are all solid choices. For most categories I have 1 or 2 options with 1 recommended. For web servers I have 6: axum, actix-web, warp, rocket, tide, and poem. With a couple of sentences for each explaining why you might or might not want to choose that option. For me Axum should be the default recommendation because it's the least quirky option. It's also a very thin layer on top of hyper, and built by the tokio team, both of which have a very long track record. Actix-web is a fine choice, but it's a bit of an odd duck in things like not being based on hyper, which makes it a little harder to integrate with the rest of the ecosystem.

dureuill 4y ago
thanks, i appreciate the detailed response. I do believe, though, that "least quirky", while definitively important, is not the most deciding factor here. Axum is very young (was announced <1y ago), it has good momentum, is based on hyper and built by the tokio team. On the other hand, it has few actual projects built with it, I couldn't find a guide for it like actix or even Rocket have (it has some documentation in its docsrs documentation, but it is pretty minimal). Crucial questions like how to handle configuration, integration with database, autoreload, are left to the examples at best. I have no doubt that these things will come if the framework matures. I'm just questioning if it should be the default choice right now, as opposed to in a year. (Btw, I would absolutely recommend against Rocket right now, even though API wise it clicked the best with me, until it gets more maintainers and development resumes)
- nicoburns 4y ago
  That's definitely a fair point on the documentation for actix-web being better (and rocket, but I agree with you on Rocket's maintenance status being problematic). Once I've got my site into a launchable state, my intention is to open up contributions on the github repo so that we can capture the wisdom of the community from all it's diverse set of perspectives. I definitely don't have all the answers myself.

bsder 4y ago

A curated list doesn't have to be "The Best(tm)" in every choice. It just has to recommend one of the top 3 for every choice and never recommend something that sucks.