head to head · open source
fastapi vs postgrest
fastapi has 104,566 GitHub stars, 10,179 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped yesterday. postgrest has 27,740 stars, 1,234 forks, 400 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. fastapi leads on adoption by 277% (104,566 vs 27,740 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%. fastapi 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| fastapi | postgrest | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 105K | ★ 28K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Haskell |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| 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 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 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 postgrest
PostgREST serves a fully RESTful API from any existing PostgreSQL database. It provides a cleaner, more standards compliant, faster API than you are likely to write from scratch. Sponsors Big thanks to our sponsors! You can join them by supporting PostgREST on Patreon. Usage 1. See the docs for how to install PostgREST on your platform. You can also use Docker. 2. Invoke for help: Documentation Latest documentation is at postgrest.org. You can contribute to the docs in PostgREST/postgrest/docs. Performance TLDR; subsecond response times for up to 2000 requests/sec on Heroku free tier. If you're used to servers…
read the full postgrest overview →
More in Developer Tools
Related comparisons
More API Development & Testing projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the API Development & Testing field.
Frequently asked questions
Is fastapi or postgrest more popular?
fastapi has 104,566 GitHub stars and postgrest has 27,740. 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 (104,566 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose postgrest if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.