Crates / async-io / Alternatives
Rust crate alternatives · data Oct 24, 2026
Alternatives to async-io
Short answerThe closest alternatives to async-io on crates.io data are tokio (3.1M real downloads a day), tower (2.3M real downloads a day), tokio-rustls (2.3M real downloads a day). Of the 8 we list, the most used is tokio, and 6 shipped a release in the last year. async-io itself gets 548,589 a day with 446 dependents.
Every alternative we found
| Alternative | Real downloads a day | vs async-io | Dependents | Last release | Why it is listed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| tokio Foundational | 3,098,313 | 5.65x | 78,796 | 3d | category Asynchronous, category Network programming | side by side |
| tower Widely used | 2,342,590 | 4.27x | 5,816 | 9mo | category Asynchronous, category Network programming | compare |
| tokio-rustls Widely used | 2,299,591 | 4.19x | 2,458 | 26d | category Asynchronous, category Network programming | compare |
| h2 Established | 2,290,495 | 4.18x | 296 | 18d | category Asynchronous, category Network programming | compare |
| tower-http Widely used | 2,044,149 | 3.73x | 3,782 | 54d | category Asynchronous, category Network programming | compare |
| tower-service Established | 1,972,046 | 3.59x | 833 | 2.2y | category Asynchronous, category Network programming | compare |
| tower-layer Established | 1,850,070 | 3.37x | 342 | 2.2y | category Asynchronous, category Network programming | compare |
| axum Widely used | 1,587,646 | 2.89x | 9,968 | 6mo | category Asynchronous, category Network programming | 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-io; 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-io: 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-io, 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: Foundational and steady. 3,098,313 real downloads a day.tokioRust crate. An event-driven, non-blocking I/O platform for writing asynchronous I/O backed applications. Real use: 3.1M downloads a day on quiet days; 78,796 crates...Read it next →Also worth your time