head to head · open source
fastapi vs grpc-gateway
fastapi has 104,566 GitHub stars, 10,179 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped yesterday. grpc-gateway has 20,012 stars, 2,415 forks, 149 open issues and last shipped yesterday. fastapi leads on adoption by 423% (104,566 vs 20,012 stars). fastapi is written in Python under MIT; grpc-gateway is written in Go under BSD-3-Clause. fastapi has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, grpc-gateway 12%. grpc-gateway was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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 | grpc-gateway | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 105K | ★ 20K |
| License | MIT | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 2.4K |
| 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 grpc-gateway if
- You want the grpc-gateway feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and grpc-gateway 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 grpc-gateway
gRPC Gateway gRPC to JSON proxy generator following the gRPC HTTP spec About The gRPC Gateway is a plugin of the Google protocol buffers compiler protoc. It reads protobuf service definitions and generates a reverse proxy server which translates a RESTful HTTP API into gRPC. This server is generated according to the google.api.http annotations in your service definitions. This helps you provide your APIs in both gRPC and RESTful style at the same time. Docs You can read our docs at: Testimonials We use the gRPC Gateway to serve millions of API requests per day, and have been since 2018 and through all of that…
read the full grpc-gateway overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is fastapi or grpc-gateway more popular?
fastapi has 104,566 GitHub stars and grpc-gateway has 20,012. fastapi has the larger community by that measure.
Are fastapi and grpc-gateway free?
Both are open source. fastapi is licensed under MIT and grpc-gateway under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between fastapi and grpc-gateway?
fastapi is written in Python and grpc-gateway 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 grpc-gateway?
Choose fastapi if you want the larger community (104,566 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose grpc-gateway if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.