head to head · open source
fastapi vs redoc
fastapi has 102,402 GitHub stars, 9,903 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. redoc has 25,913 stars, 2,395 forks, 449 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. fastapi leads on adoption by 295% (102,402 vs 25,913 stars). fastapi is written in Python under MIT; redoc is written in TypeScript under MIT. fastapi has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, redoc 9%. redoc was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (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 | redoc | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 102K | ★ 26K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-14 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.9K | ⑂ 2.4K |
| 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 redoc if
- You want the redoc feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and redoc 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 redoc
Redoc is an open source tool for generating API reference documentation from OpenAPI definitions, formerly known as Swagger. It lives in the JavaScript and TypeScript ecosystem, ships under the MIT license, and is published on npm as the redoc package. By default it renders a responsive three panel layout: a left panel holding the search bar and navigation menu, a central panel holding the documentation itself, and a right panel showing request and response examples.
read the full redoc overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is fastapi or redoc more popular?
fastapi has 102,402 GitHub stars and redoc has 25,913. fastapi has the larger community by that measure.
Are fastapi and redoc free?
Both are open source. fastapi is licensed under MIT and redoc under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between fastapi and redoc?
fastapi is written in Python and redoc 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 redoc?
Choose fastapi if you want the larger community (102,402 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose redoc if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.