head to head · open source
fastapi vs api-firewall
fastapi has 104,542 GitHub stars, 10,173 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. api-firewall has 654 stars, 62 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. fastapi leads on adoption by 15,885% (104,542 vs 654 stars). fastapi is written in Python under MIT; api-firewall is written in Go under MPL-2.0. fastapi has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, api-firewall 9%. fastapi was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (api, openapi), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| fastapi | api-firewall | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 105K | ★ 654 |
| License | MIT | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-01 | 2026-04-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 62 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick fastapi if
- You weight community size — 105K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick api-firewall if
- You want the api-firewall feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and api-firewall fits your workflow better
About fastapi
FastAPI framework, high performance, easy to learn, fast to code, ready for production Documentation : Source Code : FastAPI is a modern, fast (high performance), web framework for building APIs with Python based on standard Python type hints. The key features are: Fast : Very high performance, on par with NodeJS and Go (thanks to Starlette and Pydantic). One of the fastest Python frameworks available. Fast to code : Increase the speed to develop features by about 200% to 300%. Fewer bugs : Reduce about 40% of human (developer) induced errors. Intuitive : Great editor support. Completion everywhere. Less time…
read the full fastapi overview →
About api-firewall
Open Source API Firewall by Wallarm API Firewall is a high performance proxy with API request and response validation based on OpenAPI and GraphQL schemas. It is designed to protect REST and GraphQL API endpoints in cloud native environments. API Firewall provides API hardening with the use of a positive security model allowing calls that match a predefined API specification for requests and responses, while rejecting everything else. The key features of API Firewall are: Secure REST and GraphQL API endpoints by blocking malicious requests Stop API data breaches by blocking malformed API responses Discover…
read the full api-firewall overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is fastapi or api-firewall more popular?
fastapi has 104,542 GitHub stars and api-firewall has 654. fastapi has the larger community by that measure.
Are fastapi and api-firewall free?
Both are open source. fastapi is licensed under MIT and api-firewall under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between fastapi and api-firewall?
fastapi is written in Python and api-firewall in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, fastapi or api-firewall?
Choose fastapi if you want the larger community (104,542 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose api-firewall if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.