Roadster vs. Loco

Loco and Roadster serve similar purposes -- they both aim to reduce the amount of configuring, wiring, and other boilerplate code required to build a backend or full-stack web app in Rust. There are some notable differences, however, both in mission statement and the list of supported features. This section will give a summary of both the similarities and differences between Loco and Roadster.

Feature breakdown

Below is a detailed breakdown of the features included in Roadster and Loco. Note that because both frameworks are based on Axum and Tokio, there's not a lot technically preventing either framework from implementing features they're missing compared to the other. Features that Roadster would like to add in the near future are marked with '*'. Other missing features are not planned but we'd be open to adding if there was enough interest in them.

Last updated in Feb 2025.

Feature	Roadster	Loco
Separate `cargo` CLI to help with generating code and other tasks	❌	✅
Custom CLI commands	✅	✅
HTTP APIs via Axum	✅	✅
↳ Default "ping" and "health" HTTP routes	✅	✅
↳ Default routes can be disabled via config	✅	❌
↳ Default middleware configured with sensible defaults	✅	✅
↳ Middleware can be customized via config files	✅	✅
↳ Middleware execution order can be customized via config files	✅	❌
OpenAPI support	✅	✅
↳ built-in via Aide	✅	❌
↳ 3rd party integration, e.g. Utoipa	✅	✅
↳ OpenAPI docs explorer http route provided by default	✅	❌
GRPC API with tonic	✅	❌
Channels (websockets and/or http long-polling)	❌	✅
Support for arbitrary long-running services	✅	❌
Health checks	✅	✅
↳ Run in "health" API route	✅	✅
↳ Run on app startup	✅	❌
↳ Run via CLI	✅	❌
↳ Consumer can provide custom checks	✅	❌
Custom app context / Axum state using Axum's `FromRef`	✅	❌
SQL DB	✅	✅
↳ via Diesel	✅	❌
↳ via SeaORM	✅	✅
↳ SeaORM migrations for common DB schemas	✅ (in lib)	✅ (in starters)
Sample JWT Axum extractor	✅	✅
↳ Multiple JWT standards supported	✅	❌
Email	✅	✅
↳ via SMTP	✅	✅
↳ via Sendgrid's Mail Send API	✅	❌
Storage abstraction	❌*	✅
Cache abstraction	❌*	✅
Background jobs	✅	✅
↳ via Sidekiq	✅	✅
↳ via Postgres	❌	✅
↳ via in-process threading with Tokio	❌	✅
Periodic jobs	✅	✅
↳ via Sidekiq	✅	✅
↳ via custom scheduler	❌	✅
Configuration via config files	✅	✅
↳ Toml	✅	❌
↳ Yaml	✅	✅
Config files can be split into multiple files	✅	❌
Config values can be overridden via env vars	✅	✅
Tracing via the tracing crate	✅	✅
↳ Built-in support for trace/metric exporting via OpenTelemetry	✅	❌
insta snapshot utilities	✅	✅
Data seeding and cleanup hooks for tests	❌*	✅ (⚠️ makes tests non-parallelizable)
Mock DB support for tests	✅	❌
↳ via Temporary Test DBs	✅	✅
↳ via SeaORM's MockDatabase	✅	❌
↳ via TestContainers	✅	❌
Allows following any design pattern	✅	❌ (MVC only)
Lifecycle hooks	✅	✅
↳ Customizable shutdown signal	✅	❌
HTML rendering	✅	✅
↳ Built-in	❌	✅
↳ via 3rd party integration, e.g. Leptos	✅	⚠️ (Partial support)
Deployment config generation	❌	✅
Starter templates	❌*	✅