head to head · open source
fastapi vs ts-rest
fastapi has 102,409 GitHub stars, 9,906 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. ts-rest has 3,337 stars, 177 forks, 141 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. fastapi leads on adoption by 2,969% (102,409 vs 3,337 stars). fastapi is written in Python under MIT; ts-rest is written in TypeScript under MIT. fastapi has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, ts-rest 5%. fastapi was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (api, 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.
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Side by side
| fastapi | ts-rest | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 102K | ★ 3.3K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-14 | 2026-02-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.9K | ⑂ 177 |
| 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 ts-rest if
- You want the ts-rest feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and ts-rest 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 ts-rest
ts rest Incrementally adoptable RPC like client and server helpers for a magical end to end typed experience 🪄 Join us on Discord for help, feedback, and discussions! Introduction ts rest offers a simple way to define a contract for your API, which can be both consumed and implemented by your application, giving you end to end type safety without the hassle or code generation. Features End to end type safety 🛟 RPC like client side API ⚡️ Small Bundle Size 📉 No Code Generation 🏃♀️ Zod support for runtime validation 🔒 Full optional OpenAPI integration 📝 👉 Start reading the official Quickstart Guide 👈 Super…
read the full ts-rest overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is fastapi or ts-rest more popular?
fastapi has 102,409 GitHub stars and ts-rest has 3,337. fastapi has the larger community by that measure.
Are fastapi and ts-rest free?
Both are open source. fastapi is licensed under MIT and ts-rest under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between fastapi and ts-rest?
fastapi is written in Python and ts-rest 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 ts-rest?
Choose fastapi if you want the larger community (102,409 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose ts-rest if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.