Crates / ciborium-ll / Alternatives
Rust crate alternatives · data Oct 24, 2026
Alternatives to ciborium-ll
Short answerThe closest alternatives to ciborium-ll on crates.io data are zerocopy (3.2M real downloads a day), zvariant_utils (375K real downloads a day), zvariant (364K real downloads a day). Of the 8 we list, the most used is zerocopy, and 7 shipped a release in the last year. ciborium-ll itself gets 775,035 a day with 10 dependents.
Every alternative we found
| Alternative | Real downloads a day | vs ciborium-ll | Dependents | Last release | Why it is listed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| zerocopy Established | 3,245,504 | 4.19x | 878 | 11d | category Embedded development, category Encoding | compare |
| zvariant_utils Pulled in | 374,610 | 0.48x | 5 | 2mo | category Data structures, category Encoding | compare |
| zvariant Pulled in | 363,875 | 0.47x | 86 | 8d | category Data structures, category Encoding | compare |
| zvariant_derive Pulled in | 363,785 | 0.47x | 9 | 8d | category Data structures, category Encoding | compare |
| zbus_macros Pulled in | 354,352 | 0.46x | 12 | 1d | category Data structures, category Encoding | compare |
| zbus Established | 354,153 | 0.46x | 647 | 1d | category Data structures, category Encoding | compare |
| serde_cbor Established | 145,240 | 0.19x | 547 | 5.2y | category Encoding, keyword "cbor" | compare |
| toml_datetime Pulled in | 3,215,444 | 4.15x | 29 | 16d | category Encoding, category Parsing tools | compare |
How to choose
- Same job, not the same API. Each line is listed because it shares a crates.io category or keyword with ciborium-ll; 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 ciborium-ll: 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 ciborium-ll, 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. 3,245,504 real downloads a day.zerocopyRust crate. Zerocopy makes zero-cost memory manipulation effortless. We write "unsafe" so you don't have to. Real use: 3.2M downloads a day on quiet days; 878 crates...Read it next →Also worth your time