Crates / async-task / Alternatives
Rust crate alternatives · data Oct 24, 2026
Alternatives to async-task
Short answerThe closest alternatives to async-task on crates.io data are atomic-waker (1.9M real downloads a day), futures-lite (763K real downloads a day), tokio (3.1M real downloads a day). Of the 8 we list, the most used is tokio, and 5 shipped a release in the last year. async-task itself gets 490,818 a day with 158 dependents.
Every alternative we found
| Alternative | Real downloads a day | vs async-task | Dependents | Last release | Why it is listed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| atomic-waker Established | 1,911,010 | 3.89x | 116 | 3.1y | category Asynchronous, category Concurrency, keyword "futures" | compare |
| futures-lite Widely used | 763,457 | 1.56x | 1,109 | 15mo | category Asynchronous, category Concurrency, keyword "futures" | compare |
| tokio Foundational | 3,098,313 | 6.31x | 78,796 | 3d | category Asynchronous, keyword "futures" | compare |
| futures Foundational | 2,405,900 | 4.90x | 26,505 | 2mo | category Asynchronous, keyword "futures" | compare |
| tower Widely used | 2,342,590 | 4.77x | 5,816 | 9mo | category Asynchronous, keyword "futures" | compare |
| tower-http Widely used | 2,044,149 | 4.16x | 3,782 | 54d | category Asynchronous, keyword "futures" | compare |
| tonic Widely used | 1,214,889 | 2.48x | 3,752 | 6mo | category Asynchronous, keyword "futures" | compare |
| tracing-futures Established | 243,931 | 0.50x | 355 | 5.7y | category Asynchronous, keyword "futures" | 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-task; 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-task: 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-task, 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 quiet for years. 1,911,010 real downloads a day.atomic-wakerRust crate. A synchronization primitive for task wakeup. Real use: 1.9M downloads a day on quiet days; 116 crates depend on it.Read it next →Also worth your time