head to head · open source
fastapi vs postgrest
fastapi has 102,409 GitHub stars, 9,906 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. postgrest has 27,670 stars, 1,229 forks, 400 open issues and last shipped yesterday. fastapi leads on adoption by 270% (102,409 vs 27,670 stars). fastapi is written in Python under MIT; postgrest is written in Haskell under MIT. fastapi has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, postgrest 4%. postgrest was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (api), 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 | postgrest | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 102K | ★ 28K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Haskell |
| Last push | 2026-09-14 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.9K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| 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 postgrest if
- You want the postgrest feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Haskell
- You evaluated both and postgrest 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 postgrest
PostgREST is a Haskell written server that serves a fully RESTful API from any existing PostgreSQL database, and it is aimed at developers, database administrators, and operators who want a standards compliant HTTP API without writing and maintaining one from scratch.
read the full postgrest overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is fastapi or postgrest more popular?
fastapi has 102,409 GitHub stars and postgrest has 27,670. fastapi has the larger community by that measure.
Are fastapi and postgrest free?
Both are open source. fastapi is licensed under MIT and postgrest under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between fastapi and postgrest?
fastapi is written in Python and postgrest in Haskell. 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 postgrest?
Choose fastapi if you want the larger community (102,409 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose postgrest if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.