head to head · open source
fastapi vs resterm
fastapi has 102,402 GitHub stars, 9,903 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. resterm has 1,925 stars, 54 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped yesterday. fastapi leads on adoption by 5,220% (102,402 vs 1,925 stars). fastapi is written in Python under MIT; resterm is written in Go under Apache-2.0. fastapi has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, resterm 3%. resterm was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | resterm | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 102K | ★ 1.9K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-14 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.9K | ⑂ 54 |
| 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 resterm if
- You want the resterm feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and resterm 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 resterm
Resterm is a terminal API client for HTTP, GraphQL, and gRPC, with WebSocket and SSE support. It lives in the developer tools and API testing ecosystem, is written in Go, and is licensed under Apache 2.0. The project stores requests as plain text .http and .rest files, so users can edit, send, diff, review, and version control API work.
read the full resterm overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is fastapi or resterm more popular?
fastapi has 102,402 GitHub stars and resterm has 1,925. fastapi has the larger community by that measure.
Are fastapi and resterm free?
Both are open source. fastapi is licensed under MIT and resterm under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between fastapi and resterm?
fastapi is written in Python and resterm in Go. 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 resterm?
Choose fastapi if you want the larger community (102,402 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose resterm if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.