head to head · open source
fastapi vs ogen
fastapi has 102,409 GitHub stars, 9,906 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. ogen has 2,139 stars, 185 forks, 133 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. fastapi leads on adoption by 4,688% (102,409 vs 2,139 stars). fastapi is written in Python under MIT; ogen is written in Go under Apache-2.0. fastapi has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, ogen 9%. fastapi was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (api, 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 | ogen | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 102K | ★ 2.1K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-14 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.9K | ⑂ 185 |
| 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 ogen if
- You want the ogen 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 ogen 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 ogen
ogen is an Apache 2.0 licensed OpenAPI v3 code generator for Go that converts an OpenAPI v3 specification into statically typed Go server interfaces and client code, aimed at Go teams who would rather generate their HTTP API layer from a spec than hand write it.
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Frequently asked questions
Is fastapi or ogen more popular?
fastapi has 102,409 GitHub stars and ogen has 2,139. fastapi has the larger community by that measure.
Are fastapi and ogen free?
Both are open source. fastapi is licensed under MIT and ogen under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between fastapi and ogen?
fastapi is written in Python and ogen 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 ogen?
Choose fastapi if you want the larger community (102,409 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose ogen if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.