No worries, I don't think you're being contrarian - I think projects that properly do this stuff have trouble rising above the micro-framework-style projects.

No worries, I don't think you're being contrarian - I think projects that properly do this stuff have trouble rising above the micro-framework-style projects. https://github.com/secretkeysio/jelly-actix-web-starter https://github.com/secretkeysio/jelly-actix-web-starter I put all of this together some time ago, explicitly modeled after Django. This repo isn't up to date with actix-web 4 as I've been too busy with other (paying) work, but it absolutely exists. I've used this for services in production with no issues. I really do need to get time to finish and push the updates though. Mine isn't even the first, I'm pretty sure there are others working in this space. Just needs the right people pushing it.