head to head · open source
fastapi vs api-platform
fastapi has 102,402 GitHub stars, 9,903 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. api-platform has 9,185 stars, 971 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped 17 days ago. fastapi leads on adoption by 1,015% (102,402 vs 9,185 stars). fastapi is written in Python under MIT; api-platform is written in PHP under MIT. fastapi has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, api-platform 11%. 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, framework), 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-platform | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 102K | ★ 9.2K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-14 | 2026-09-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.9K | ⑂ 971 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick fastapi if
- You weight community size — 102K 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-platform if
- You want the api-platform feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and api-platform fits your workflow better
About fastapi
FastAPI is an MIT licensed, high performance Python web framework for building APIs with standard Python type hints, aimed at Python developers and teams that need production ready HTTP services with automatic OpenAPI documentation.
read the full fastapi overview →
About api-platform
API Platform is an MIT licensed, PHP based next generation web framework for building API first projects, aimed at backend and full stack teams that want to expose hypermedia REST and GraphQL APIs from plain PHP data models without leaving the Symfony and JavaScript ecosystems they already know.
read the full api-platform overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is fastapi or api-platform more popular?
fastapi has 102,402 GitHub stars and api-platform has 9,185. fastapi has the larger community by that measure.
Are fastapi and api-platform free?
Both are open source. fastapi is licensed under MIT and api-platform under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between fastapi and api-platform?
fastapi is written in Python and api-platform in PHP. 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-platform?
Choose fastapi if you want the larger community (102,402 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose api-platform if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.