head to head · open source
fastapi vs karate
fastapi has 102,402 GitHub stars, 9,903 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. karate has 8,957 stars, 2,044 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped yesterday. fastapi leads on adoption by 1,043% (102,402 vs 8,957 stars). fastapi is written in Python under MIT; karate is written in Java under MIT. fastapi has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, karate 23%. karate 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.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| fastapi | karate | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 102K | ★ 9.0K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-14 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.9K | ⑂ 2.0K |
| 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 karate if
- You want the karate feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and karate 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 karate
Karate is an open source, MIT licensed Java framework that combines API testing, mocks, performance testing and UI automation into a single unified tool, aimed at teams that need to test APIs and services without stitching several separate tools together.
read the full karate overview →
More in Developer Tools
Related comparisons
More API Development & Testing projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the API Development & Testing field.
Frequently asked questions
Is fastapi or karate more popular?
fastapi has 102,402 GitHub stars and karate has 8,957. fastapi has the larger community by that measure.
Are fastapi and karate free?
Both are open source. fastapi is licensed under MIT and karate under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between fastapi and karate?
fastapi is written in Python and karate in Java. 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 karate?
Choose fastapi if you want the larger community (102,402 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose karate if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.