head to head · open source
fastapi vs swag
fastapi has 102,402 GitHub stars, 9,903 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. swag has 13,024 stars, 1,547 forks, 476 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. fastapi leads on adoption by 686% (102,402 vs 13,024 stars). fastapi is written in Python under MIT; swag is written in Go under MIT. fastapi has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, swag 12%. fastapi was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| fastapi | swag | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 102K | ★ 13K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-14 | 2026-09-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.9K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| 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 swag if
- You want the swag feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and swag 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 swag
Swag is a command line tool that converts Go source annotations into Swagger 2.0 documentation. It lives in the Go ecosystem, is distributed under the MIT license, and is maintained by the swaggo organization. The project has been active for nine years, with the most recent push recorded in September 2026, and it carries roughly 13,000 stars and 1,545 forks on GitHub.
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 swag more popular?
fastapi has 102,402 GitHub stars and swag has 13,024. fastapi has the larger community by that measure.
Are fastapi and swag free?
Both are open source. fastapi is licensed under MIT and swag under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between fastapi and swag?
fastapi is written in Python and swag 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 swag?
Choose fastapi if you want the larger community (102,402 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose swag if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.