head to head · open source
fastapi vs curlie
fastapi has 102,402 GitHub stars, 9,903 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. curlie has 3,726 stars, 114 forks, 26 open issues and last shipped 10 months ago. fastapi leads on adoption by 2,648% (102,402 vs 3,726 stars). fastapi is written in Python under MIT; curlie is written in Go under MIT. fastapi has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, curlie 3%. fastapi was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | curlie | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 102K | ★ 3.7K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-14 | 2025-12-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.9K | ⑂ 114 |
| 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 curlie if
- You want the curlie feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and curlie 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 curlie
Curlie is a command line HTTP client written in Go and licensed under the MIT License. It lives in the developer tools and API development and testing ecosystem, and it acts as a frontend to curl while borrowing request syntax and output presentation from HTTPie.
read the full curlie overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is fastapi or curlie more popular?
fastapi has 102,402 GitHub stars and curlie has 3,726. fastapi has the larger community by that measure.
Are fastapi and curlie free?
Both are open source. fastapi is licensed under MIT and curlie under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between fastapi and curlie?
fastapi is written in Python and curlie 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 curlie?
Choose fastapi if you want the larger community (102,402 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose curlie if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.