Crates / critical-section / Alternatives
Rust crate alternatives · data Oct 24, 2026
Alternatives to critical-section
Short answerThe closest alternatives to critical-section on crates.io data are portable-atomic-util (537K real downloads a day), zerocopy (3.2M real downloads a day), parking_lot_core (3M real downloads a day). Of the 8 we list, the most used is zerocopy, and 8 shipped a release in the last year. critical-section itself gets 463,025 a day with 793 dependents.
Every alternative we found
| Alternative | Real downloads a day | vs critical-section | Dependents | Last release | Why it is listed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| portable-atomic-util Pulled in | 537,004 | 1.16x | 73 | 50d | category Concurrency, category Embedded development | compare |
| zerocopy Established | 3,245,504 | 7.01x | 878 | 11d | category Embedded development | compare |
| parking_lot_core Pulled in | 2,995,937 | 6.47x | 47 | 3d | category Concurrency | compare |
| parking_lot Widely used | 2,961,161 | 6.40x | 8,755 | 3d | category Concurrency | compare |
| lock_api Established | 2,874,492 | 6.21x | 143 | 3d | category Concurrency, category No standard library | compare |
| crossbeam-utils Established | 2,696,777 | 5.82x | 605 | 49d | category Concurrency, category No standard library | compare |
| icu_provider Pulled in | 2,521,500 | 5.45x | 93 | 2d | category Embedded development, category No standard library | compare |
| icu_collections Pulled in | 2,507,923 | 5.42x | 25 | 2d | category Embedded development, category No standard library | compare |
How to choose
- Same job, not the same API. Each line is listed because it shares a crates.io category or keyword with critical-section; 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 critical-section: 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 critical-section, 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: Few direct dependents and gaining. 537,004 real downloads a day.portable-atomic-utilRust crate. Synchronization primitives built with portable-atomic. Real use: 537K downloads a day on quiet days; 73 crates depend on it.Read it next →Also worth your time