head to head · open source
fastapi vs gnostic
fastapi has 102,409 GitHub stars, 9,906 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. gnostic has 2,302 stars, 279 forks, 119 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. fastapi leads on adoption by 4,349% (102,409 vs 2,302 stars). fastapi is written in Python under MIT; gnostic is written in Go under Apache-2.0. fastapi has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, gnostic 12%. fastapi was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (openapi, openapi3), 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 | gnostic | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 102K | ★ 2.3K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-14 | 2026-08-10 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.9K | ⑂ 279 |
| 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 gnostic if
- You want the gnostic feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and gnostic 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 gnostic
gnostic is a Go command line tool from Google that compiles OpenAPI descriptions written in JSON or YAML into Protocol Buffer representations and back again, aimed at developers who need type safe, language neutral access to API descriptions and at tool authors who build code generators and other API tooling on top of a plugin interface.
read the full gnostic overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is fastapi or gnostic more popular?
fastapi has 102,409 GitHub stars and gnostic has 2,302. fastapi has the larger community by that measure.
Are fastapi and gnostic free?
Both are open source. fastapi is licensed under MIT and gnostic under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between fastapi and gnostic?
fastapi is written in Python and gnostic 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 gnostic?
Choose fastapi if you want the larger community (102,409 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose gnostic if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.