head to head · open source
fastapi vs orpc
fastapi has 102,402 GitHub stars, 9,903 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. orpc has 5,628 stars, 170 forks, 27 open issues and last shipped yesterday. fastapi leads on adoption by 1,720% (102,402 vs 5,628 stars). fastapi is written in Python under MIT; orpc is written in TypeScript under MIT. fastapi has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, orpc 3%. orpc was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (api, 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 | orpc | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 102K | ★ 5.6K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-14 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.9K | ⑂ 170 |
| 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 orpc if
- You want the orpc feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and orpc 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 orpc
oRPC is an MIT licensed TypeScript toolkit for building and consuming end to end typesafe APIs, aimed at TypeScript developers on Node.js, Bun, Deno, Next.js, React, SolidJS, Vue/Pinia, and Cloudflare Workers.
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Frequently asked questions
Is fastapi or orpc more popular?
fastapi has 102,402 GitHub stars and orpc has 5,628. fastapi has the larger community by that measure.
Are fastapi and orpc free?
Both are open source. fastapi is licensed under MIT and orpc under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between fastapi and orpc?
fastapi is written in Python and orpc in TypeScript. 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 orpc?
Choose fastapi if you want the larger community (102,402 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose orpc if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.