head to head · open source
fastapi vs mcpo
fastapi has 102,409 GitHub stars, 9,906 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. mcpo has 4,378 stars, 495 forks, 56 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. fastapi leads on adoption by 2,239% (102,409 vs 4,378 stars). fastapi is written in Python under MIT; mcpo is written in Python under MIT. fastapi has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, mcpo 11%. fastapi 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 | mcpo | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 102K | ★ 4.4K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-14 | 2026-05-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.9K | ⑂ 495 |
| 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 mcpo if
- You want the mcpo feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and mcpo 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 mcpo
mcpo is a Python proxy server that exposes any Model Context Protocol (MCP) tool as an OpenAPI compatible HTTP server, built for developers and teams who need MCP tools to work with LLM agents, SDKs and UIs that speak standard OpenAPI.
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Frequently asked questions
Is fastapi or mcpo more popular?
fastapi has 102,409 GitHub stars and mcpo has 4,378. fastapi has the larger community by that measure.
Are fastapi and mcpo free?
Both are open source. fastapi is licensed under MIT and mcpo under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between fastapi and mcpo?
fastapi is written in Python and mcpo in Python. 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 mcpo?
Choose fastapi if you want the larger community (102,409 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose mcpo if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.