head to head · open source
fastapi vs Zappa
fastapi has 102,402 GitHub stars, 9,903 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Zappa has 3,695 stars, 392 forks, 23 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. fastapi leads on adoption by 2,671% (102,402 vs 3,695 stars). fastapi is written in Python under MIT; Zappa is written in Python under MIT. fastapi has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Zappa 11%. Zappa was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (python), 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 | Zappa | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 102K | ★ 3.7K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-14 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.9K | ⑂ 392 |
| 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 Zappa if
- You want the Zappa feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Zappa 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 Zappa
Zappa is an open source Python project for deploying serverless web applications and APIs on AWS. It lives in the Python web framework ecosystem and the AWS serverless ecosystem, with topic tags for Flask, Django, Pyramid, Bottle, AWS Lambda, API Gateway, and ALB. The project is distributed under the MIT license and is categorized as a developer tool for API development and testing.
read the full Zappa overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is fastapi or Zappa more popular?
fastapi has 102,402 GitHub stars and Zappa has 3,695. fastapi has the larger community by that measure.
Are fastapi and Zappa free?
Both are open source. fastapi is licensed under MIT and Zappa under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between fastapi and Zappa?
fastapi is written in Python and Zappa in Python. 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 Zappa?
Choose fastapi if you want the larger community (102,402 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Zappa if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.