Introduction
As the Rust programming language continues to gain popularity in the development world, its web framework ecosystem is also evolving and expanding. By 2025, the Axum framework, developed by the Tokio team, is becoming a new favorite in the Rust web development field. This article will introduce the advantages, competitiveness, and future prospects of the Axum framework, helping Rust developers understand this rising technical star.
Overview of Axum Framework
Axum is a lightweight web framework built on the Tokio asynchronous engine and the Hyper HTTP library. As a product of the Tokio team, which provides the underlying technology for Discord, Axum is attracting more and more developers with its simple design and powerful performance.
Core Advantages
- Type-Driven Design: Axum fully utilizes Rust’s type system, making API development more intuitive.
- Lightweight Architecture: Avoids excessive use of macros, resulting in clear and understandable code.
- Powerful Asynchronous Support: Based on the Tokio asynchronous engine, it handles concurrent requests with ease.
- Tower Middleware Ecosystem: Built-in rich middleware support, such as rate limiting, tracing, and CORS.
Axum vs Competitors
Compared to other Rust web frameworks, Axum has the following competitive advantages:
Compared to Rocket
- Simpler Syntax: Reduces the use of macros and adopts Rust’s traits (such as
<span>FromRequest</span>and<span>IntoResponse</span>) for a clearer workflow. - Example Code:
// Rocket style (heavy use of macros)
#[get("/hello/<name>")]
fn hello(name: String) -> String {
format!("Hello, {}!", name)
}
// Axum style (trait-driven)
async fn hello(Path(name): Path<String>) -> impl IntoResponse {
// Using traits instead of macros, the code is more intuitive
format!("Hello, {}!", name)
}
app.route("/hello/:name", get(hello));
Compared to Actix Web
- More Lightweight: Fewer dependencies, easier to understand, with comparable performance (2025 benchmarks show handling 500,000 requests/second on a single core).
- Tower Middleware Advantage: The built-in Tower middleware ecosystem provides plug-and-play functionality.
// Example of Axum using Tower middleware
use axum::{
routing::get,
Router,
};
use tower_http::trace::TraceLayer;
async fn main() {
// Create application routes
let app = Router::new()
.route("/", get(|| async { "Hello, World!" }))
// Use tracing middleware provided by Tower
.layer(TraceLayer::new_for_http());
// Start server
axum::Server::bind(&"0.0.0.0:3000".parse().unwrap())
.serve(app.into_make_service())
.await
.unwrap();
}
Application Scenarios of Axum
Axum excels in the following areas:
Edge Computing
The lightweight architecture makes it very suitable for 5G-driven edge devices:
// Lightweight API for edge computing scenarios
async fn process_sensor_data(
Json(data): Json<SensorData>,
) -> impl IntoResponse {
// Process sensor data
let result = process_data(data).await;
// Return processing result
Json(result)
}
// Route setup
let app = Router::new()
.route("/api/sensors", post(process_sensor_data));
Web3 Applications
Axum’s WebAssembly support makes it an ideal choice for decentralized applications:
// Web3 application example - Blockchain data query API
async fn get_block_data(
Path(block_id): Path<String>,
) -> impl IntoResponse {
// Connect to blockchain node
let client = connect_to_node().await;
// Query block data
match client.get_block(&block_id).await {
Ok(data) => Json(data).into_response(),
Err(_) => StatusCode::NOT_FOUND.into_response(),
}
}
// Route setup
let app = Router::new()
.route("/blocks/:block_id", get(get_block_data));
AI Inference API
Combined with libraries like <span>tch-rs</span>, it can build efficient AI server-side services:
// AI inference API example
async fn image_classification(
// Use multipart to receive image uploads
multipart: Multipart,
) -> impl IntoResponse {
// Process uploaded image file
let image = extract_image(multipart).await?;
// Load AI model for inference
let model = Model::load("./models/classifier.pt");
let prediction = model.predict(&image);
// Return prediction result
Json(prediction)
}
// Route setup
let app = Router::new()
.route("/api/classify", post(image_classification));
Future Development of Axum
According to the article’s predictions, the future development directions of Axum include:
- Tighter integration with Leptos framework: Expected to achieve full-stack Rust development by mid-2025.
- Documentation improvements: Adding more beginner-friendly tutorials and examples.
- Community tool expansion: Increasing more pre-built plugins and ORM integrations.
- Enhanced server-side rendering: Catching up with Rocket’s advantages in SSR.
Getting Started with Axum
Steps to quickly get started with Axum:
// Create a new project
// Execute in terminal:
// cargo new axum_demo
// cd axum_demo
// Add dependencies in Cargo.toml
// [dependencies]
// axum = "0.8.0" // Use the latest version
// tokio = { version = "1.36.0", features = ["full"] }
// serde = { version = "1.0", features = ["derive"] }
// serde_json = "1.0"
// src/main.rs
use axum::{
routing::{get, post},
http::StatusCode,
Json, Router,
};
use serde::{Deserialize, Serialize};
use std::net::SocketAddr;
// Define data model
#[derive(Serialize, Deserialize)]
struct User {
name: String,
email: String,
}
// Handle GET request
async fn hello_world() -> &'static str {
"Hello, Axum!" // Return simple text
}
// Handle POST request
async fn create_user(
// Automatically parse JSON from request body
Json(user): Json<User>,
) -> (StatusCode, Json<User>) {
// Return status code and JSON response
(StatusCode::CREATED, Json(user))
}
#[tokio::main]
async fn main() {
// Build application routes
let app = Router::new()
.route("/", get(hello_world))
.route("/users", post(create_user));
// Set address
let addr = SocketAddr::from(([127, 0, 0, 1], 3000));
// Start server
println!("Server running at http://{}", addr);
axum::Server::bind(&addr)
.serve(app.into_make_service())
.await
.unwrap();
}
Conclusion
As a rising star in the Rust ecosystem, Axum is rapidly emerging with its simple design, powerful performance, and support from the Tokio team. Its application potential in edge computing, Web3, and AI is particularly prominent. For Rust developers, now is the best time to explore and master Axum to maintain a technical edge in web development in 2025 and beyond.
Although Axum still has room for improvement in documentation, community tools, and SSR, its development momentum is already very evident. With the continued investment from the Tokio team and the growth of the community, Axum is expected to surpass its competitors and become the preferred framework for Rust web development in the near future.
References
- Rust’s Rising Star: Why Axum Is About to Outshine the Competition in 2025 – Original article from Medium, author Sreeved Vp
- Axum Official Documentation: https://docs.rs/axum/latest/axum/
- Tokio Project Official Website: https://tokio.rs/
Recommended Books
This book “The Rust Programming Language” (2nd Edition) is an authoritative learning resource written by the Rust core development team and translated by members of the Chinese Rust community. It is suitable for all software developers who wish to evaluate, get started, improve, and research the Rust language, and is regarded as essential reading for Rust development work.
The book introduces the basic concepts of the Rust language to unique practical tools, covering advanced concepts such as ownership, traits, lifetimes, and safety guarantees, as well as practical tools like pattern matching, error handling, package management, functional features, and concurrency mechanisms. It includes three complete project development case studies, guiding readers to develop Rust practical projects from scratch.
Notably, this book has been updated to the Rust 2021 version, meeting the systematic learning needs of beginners and serving as a reference guide for experienced developers, making it the best entry point for building solid Rust skills.