head to head · open source
fastapi vs portman
fastapi has 104,566 GitHub stars, 10,179 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped yesterday. portman has 685 stars, 63 forks, 56 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. fastapi leads on adoption by 15,165% (104,566 vs 685 stars). fastapi is written in Python under MIT; portman is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. fastapi has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, portman 9%. fastapi 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 | portman | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 105K | ★ 685 |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 63 |
| 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 portman if
- You want the portman feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and portman 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 portman
Portman 👨🏽🚀 Port OpenAPI Spec to Postman Collection, with contract & variation tests included! Portman leverages OpenAPI documents, with all its defined API request/response properties, to power your Postman collection. Let Portman do all the work and inject contract & variation tests with a minimum of configuration. Customize the Postman requests & variables with a wide range of options to assign & overwrite variables. [!IMPORTANT] Important Change: If you are using version 1.28.0 with a custom Postman config file specified by the postmanConfigFile flag, please ensure that the parametersResolution option is…
read the full portman overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is fastapi or portman more popular?
fastapi has 104,566 GitHub stars and portman has 685. fastapi has the larger community by that measure.
Are fastapi and portman free?
Both are open source. fastapi is licensed under MIT and portman under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between fastapi and portman?
fastapi is written in Python and portman 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 portman?
Choose fastapi if you want the larger community (104,566 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose portman if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.