Api Framework reviews from Reddit
Summary
We analyzed 167 Reddit reviews across 15 subreddits and 23 posts to rank the best Api Framework brands recommended by redditors, including communities like r/node, r/scala, r/PHP, r/java, r/PHPhelp. Top-rated brands include NestJS (4.2/5), Fastify (4.1/5), Express (3.9/5).
Stats
Reviews167
Subreddits15
Posts23
Brands77
Products19
167 reviews from
and
By Brand
/By Product
#1
NestJS
4.2
(16)
"Go with NestJS , strict , good documentation, typescript language."
"Nestjs ftw 🥰"
"If you build application where performance and scalability are the most important then go with microservice architecture of Nest.js framework."
"I'll be trying just fastify with plugins and things they recommended in docs and nest with Prisma."
"Basically the best 2 right now are fastify and nest."
"NestJS works with either Express or Fastify."
"I'm definitely going to try creating a quick proof of concept for some basic stuff with Nest."
"Well, to me Nest looks like a good level of abstraction above express."
"If you are sure that it is going to grow and migrate to Microservices you can go with Fastify or NestJS."
"For scalability use Nest js."
#2
Fastify
4.1
(14)
"Basically the best 2 right now are fastify and nest."
"Fastify all day."
"For performance, definitely Fastify."
"Fastify - stick to it, that team is awesome."
"I'll be trying just fastify with plugins and things they recommended in docs and nest with Prisma."
"Fastify isn’t written in TS but has solid type support."
"Fastify, Featherjs."
"If you are sure that it is going to grow and migrate to Microservices you can go with Fastify or NestJS."
"Fastify is super fast."
"I'd go with Fastify or Express using some boilerplate."
#3
Express
3.9
(12)
"Express, always."
"Express.js a framework of Node.js is best framework to use to build REST API."
"Express and Fastify are great."
"Express."
"Express."
"Express makes things a lot easier and this would be my recommendation."
"I'm from operations land, stick with Express. You'll never get fired for suggesting it."
"Express. MEAN stack is solid enough (though I'm not fond of mongo)."
"Express is very easy, reliable and fast so I see no reason why anyone would use anything else for basic REST APIs"
"Plain Express is just fine."
#4
FeathersJS
4.0
(7)
"If you feel like you want a little more overhead, take a look at FeathersJS."
"Fastify, Featherjs."
"Feathers supports only express-transport for REST."
"Feathers or Nest if i was back with a node project."
"I’ll second Feathers. The real-time functionality is awesome."
"Feathers currently runs on top of Express."
"FeathersJs"
#5
Laravel
4.7
(6)
"If there having chance in future your project will be expand with more and secure APIs then go with Laravel or YII framework."
"Agreed. Laravel is easy to learn and imo the best choice."
"The best answer is Laravel and you should give it another shot. If Laravel doesn’t work for you in terms of ease of use I don’t know if you’ll be better off with any of the other suggestions. Fastest way to build a PHP app nowadays IMO."
"Imo Laravel is the best option in most cases, and easier to "learn" and more ready to go out of the box."
"Laravel is also a solid option for API development."
"Yeah I don’t get the hatred for Laravel. I know there’s a steep learning curve, but it’s not like Laravel is “weird”."
#6
Slim
4.0
(7)
"I'd recommend Slim, but Luman may also be a good choice."
"Slim is the way to go"
"Slim, php-di plus doctrine is a nice setup. Lumen is also a good choice."
"Out of the box, no ORM. Slim 4 is even more modular with decoupled bring-your-own PSR-7 factory and container implementations."
"As others, I can also recommend Slim or Mezzio. Use Doctrine as your ORM, JWT for authn/authz and you are good to go."
"It’s been a while, but I used to use Slim."
"Slim."
#7
API Platform
4.3
(6)
"API Platform integrates nicely with Symfony, it does all the heavy lifting for you instead of building everything yourself."
"API Platform is a pinacle."
"Yes pretty much the way to go if you wanna have an API running in no time. Plus it is built on top of Symfony so you have all that going on as well, plus it supports json ld out of the box plus it builds you the swagger docs with min to no configuration."
"API Platform is probably one of the most powerful tool out there"
"There is API platform, see https://api-platform.com/."
"There are detractors who advise against using API Platform."
#8
FastAPI
5.0
(4)
"If building api i will go to fast api"
"Flask? FastApi!"
"FastAPI is a strong future proof solution."
"I would recommend fastapi."
#9
Symfony
4.3
(4)
"Using platforms built for API development can save time and enhance security."
"Symfony is a great choice for long term support."
"Symfony ofcourse"
"It was called Silex, at some point they decided to make the base symfony project more stripped, this package is now called symfony/flex."
#10
Adonis
4.3
(3)
"Using Adonis for over 3years now and recommend it to everyone."
"Id recommend either AdonisJs or FeathersJs."
"It's very opinionated, but on the good side it all take cares most stuff you need."
#11
Http4s
4.3
(3)
"I'd personally recommend http4s."
"Http4s is a good choice for those who prefer libraries."
"For what it’s worth, your use-case is exactly what http4s targets."
#12
Koa
4.0
(3)
"KoaJS, MongoDB and Sveltekit are my recommendations."
"We are using Koa with openapi3 and our library koas3."
"I've been really impressed with [Koa](http://koajs.com/) recently."
#13
DropWizard
4.0
(3)
"Dropwizard!!!!"
"It is a simple high performance standalone service."
"Personally, I'm using DropWizard since it fits better with what we're doing."
#14
AdonisJS
4.0
(3)
"Checking out AdonisJS myself for work and really liking what I'm seeing."
"I’m using AdonisJs at work, and so far it’s gone well."
"I use AdonisJS at work"
#15
Sails
3.7
(3)
"I also use sails, it's great."
"I <3 [Sails.js](http://sailsjs.org/#/). It automatically generates a data-driven RESTful API."
"Sails"
#16
SparkJava
5.0
(2)
"SparkJava is another great option for simple Java projects."
"SparkJava is an excellent framework for building web applications."
#17
Vertx
4.5
(2)
"Fast, built in async."
"Just use either vertx or spring boot"
#18
Play Framework
4.5
(2)
"Use Play. There's an example of how to build a REST API with Play here."
"I'm worried that if I'll use http4s I'll find less reliable modules. For example I want to use jwt auth, and all the big frameworks like PLAY got it all covered from a lot of maintained repositories."
#19
Cask
4.5
(2)
"Cask is perfect for beginners looking for simplicity."
"Maybe a less popular opinion, but if it is really as simple as what you're explaining, don't write off simple libraries like Cask."
#20
Play
4.0
(2)
"Try Play"
"Play is a framework option if you insist on using one."
#21
Hapi
4.0
(2)
"Hapi etc."
"Surprised not to see HapiJS already mentioned."
#22
routing-controllers
4.0
(2)
"I really like its simplicity and readability."
"Using routing-controllers for me was on of the easiest way to do rest API as it does just that and nothing else."
#23
Tastypie
4.0
(2)
"Tastypie is good, if you want to explore you might find django-piston or django rest framework of help too."
"Overall it offers a really easy and pluggable package that vanilla and even not-so-vanilla applications can be plugged right in to."
#24
Akka HTTP
4.0
(2)
"Akka HTTP and / or Classical Akka Actors for API."
"Akka HTTP for API."
#25
Poem
3.5
(2)
"Poem seems to have a lot of love and attempts to be easier."
"You may to consider https://github.com/poem-web/poem instead of axum."
#26
Scalatra
3.0
(2)
"Scalatra is a great choice for Scala projects."
"I got way burnt out on Play. It's just complexity overload."
#27
RestSharp
5.0
(1)
"Rest Sharp is the answer to your first question."
#28
com-lihaoyi
5.0
(1)
"Cask is super simple"
#29
Scala
5.0
(1)
"The examples provided are simple and effective for learning various frameworks."
#30
Akka
5.0
(1)
"Big akka-http fan here, and if you can convince your org to use it, akka-grpc. I love that it's a streaming first pipeline primarily."
#31
Arduino
5.0
(1)
"Firmata will do what you need."
#32
Jetty
5.0
(1)
"The SPARK framework can run standalone with Jetty or in a web application container."
#33
zio-http
5.0
(1)
"It is simple, it works great and has a good integration with ZIO."
#34
hyper-ts
5.0
(1)
"If you like writing functional code with some cool compile-time benefits, `hyper-ts` is great."
#35
Gin
5.0
(1)
"Love Gin. Perfect mix of simplicity and extensibility."
#36
Fiber
4.0
(1)
"Using Fiber and liking it a lot!"
#37
Buffalo
4.0
(1)
"Have a look at [Buffalo](http://gobuffalo.io/)"
#38
Diet.js
4.0
(1)
"Ive begun using [Diet.js](http://dietjs.com) due to it's insanely tiny size and speed."
#39
Trongate
4.0
(1)
"Trongate's API Explorer is worth looking at"
#40
FlightPHP
4.0
(1)
"Flightphp"
#41
Jersey
4.0
(1)
"Look at the Jersey."
#42
Spring Boot
4.0
(1)
"Just use either vertx or spring boot"
#43
Rapidoid
4.0
(1)
"Try Rapidoid, it's very fast and easy to set up."
#44
Tomcat
4.0
(1)
"Tomcat is a reliable choice for deploying web applications."
#45
Wildfly
4.0
(1)
"Wildfly offers great support for Java EE applications."
#46
PostgreSQL
4.0
(1)
"PostgreSQL with PostGIS is beneficial for geo-location features."
#47
JAX-RS
4.0
(1)
"This seems pretty small and probably not worth dragging in a big framework. I would probably just stick with a pure JAX-RS implementation."
#48
NodeJS
4.0
(1)
"NodeJS + ExpressJS is gaining popularity and offers faster performance."
#49
Finch
4.0
(1)
"Finch/Doobie is a common pretty common stack for functional REST APIs in Scala."
#50
ASP.NET
4.0
(1)
"ASP.NET/C# is suitable for scaling applications and handles large user loads effectively."
#51
akka-http
4.0
(1)
"Akka-http is also a solid library choice."
#52
Helidon
4.0
(1)
"Helidon is a solid framework for Java projects."
#53
Micronaut
4.0
(1)
"Micronaut offers excellent features for Java development."
#54
WebActors
4.0
(1)
"If you're looking to get the most throughput then I'd take a look at something like WebActors."
#55
Netty
4.0
(1)
"Netty makes it fairly easy to set up an HTTP server and even HTTP2."
#56
Java HTTP Server
4.0
(1)
"Any Java HTTP server will do the work just fine."
#57
Microsoft
4.0
(1)
"I prefer asp.net core"
#58
CodeIgniter
4.0
(1)
"Since you have CodeIgniter experience, have you tried version 4? It keeps the same design philosophy as version 3, and is definitely lightweight and secure."
#59
SvelteKit
4.0
(1)
"If you want less overhead than Nest but still more guidance and/or boundaries than something like express, check out SvelteKit."
#60
GraphQL
4.0
(1)
"REST is so old school. Try graphQL and you'd never wanna go back."
#61
ladjs
4.0
(1)
"Ladjs is a really great Koa based MVC framework for node. It’s not as well maintained as some of the other mentions here but it’s wonderfully architected and fun to use."
#62
TSOA
4.0
(1)
"If you like Typescript and need Swagger/OpenAPI documentation for your API, I would give TSOA a try."
#63
hyper-express
4.0
(1)
"If you think you will have high traffic endpoints that will serve from a memory cache then hyper-express would be a good way to maximize throughput."
#64
tsed.io
4.0
(1)
"[tsed.io](https://tsed.io) / foalts"
#65
Fusio
4.0
(1)
"Fusio which is an open source API management platform to build APIs."
#66
CakePHP
4.0
(1)
"I've used CakePHP a ton and as a shameless promotion I built this OpenAPI/Swagger/Redoc generator for it."
#67
Tapir
4.0
(1)
"Use Tapir then you have flexibility of using which ever backend you want plus Swagger/OpenApi page thrown in as a bonus."
#68
Undertow
4.0
(1)
"Undertow"
#69
Play Framework, HTTP4S, Spring Scala
4.0
(1)
"I think I saw some Play repo stripped of additional stuff, but, God, I forget a name. Also there is Twitter's stack and HTTP4S if you are into functional programming. And there is Spring Scala though I am not sure its maintained anymore."
#70
Goa
4.0
(1)
"It has what you're looking for."
#71
Go-Zero
4.0
(1)
"Afaik that's a code-gen based framework."
#72
Django REST Framework
4.0
(1)
"I find Python much more natural for backend stuff than JavaScript."
#73
Axum
4.0
(1)
"Axum seems to have the advantage of being created by Tokio and modular."
#74
Actix
4.0
(1)
"The best that i found are https://actix.rs/"
#75
Rocket
4.0
(1)
"And https://rocket.rs/"
#76
Twitter Finatra
3.0
(1)
"Twitter Finatra is another framework you can consider."
#77
MongoDB
2.0
(1)
"MongoDB lacks advantages over PostgreSQL and performs worse in many aspects."
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