Crates / async-channel / Alternatives
Rust crate alternatives · data Oct 24, 2026
Alternatives to async-channel
Short answerThe closest alternatives to async-channel on crates.io data are flume (769K real downloads a day), atomic-waker (1.9M real downloads a day), futures-lite (763K real downloads a day). Of the 8 we list, the most used is tokio, and 6 shipped a release in the last year. async-channel itself gets 881,815 a day with 1,037 dependents.
Every alternative we found
| Alternative | Real downloads a day | vs async-channel | Dependents | Last release | Why it is listed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| flume Established | 768,860 | 0.87x | 970 | 11mo | category Concurrency, keyword "mpmc", keyword "mpsc" | side by side |
| atomic-waker Established | 1,911,010 | 2.17x | 116 | 3.1y | category Asynchronous, category Concurrency, keyword "futures" | compare |
| futures-lite Widely used | 763,457 | 0.87x | 1,109 | 15mo | category Asynchronous, category Concurrency, keyword "futures" | compare |
| tokio Foundational | 3,098,313 | 3.51x | 78,796 | 3d | category Asynchronous, keyword "futures" | compare |
| futures Foundational | 2,405,900 | 2.73x | 26,505 | 2mo | category Asynchronous, keyword "futures" | compare |
| tower Widely used | 2,342,590 | 2.66x | 5,816 | 9mo | category Asynchronous, keyword "futures" | compare |
| tower-http Widely used | 2,044,149 | 2.32x | 3,782 | 54d | category Asynchronous, keyword "futures" | compare |
| crossbeam-channel Widely used | 1,564,625 | 1.77x | 2,767 | 49d | category Concurrency, keyword "mpmc" | compare |
How to choose
- Same job, not the same API. Each line is listed because it shares a crates.io category or keyword with async-channel; read its description before you swap.
- More dependents means more answered questions and a smaller chance it disappears.
- Check the last release against how fast you need fixes. For async-channel: is it still maintained?
Rules
Alternatives = tracked crates (top 1000 by downloads) that share a specific crates.io category (2 points each) or keyword (3 points each) with async-channel, most similar first; its own parts (same name prefix) and crates it depends on or that depend on it are left out, because those are companions, not substitutes. Real downloads = quiet-day median, crates.io data Oct 24, 2026. Built when we find 3 or more.
Up next
The closest alternative: Established and steady. 768,860 real downloads a day.flumeRust crate. A blazingly fast multi-producer channel. Real use: 769K downloads a day on quiet days; 970 crates depend on it.Read it next →Also worth your time