Crates / futures-lite / Alternatives
Rust crate alternatives · data Oct 24, 2026
Alternatives to futures-lite
Short answerThe closest alternatives to futures-lite on crates.io data are atomic-waker (1.9M real downloads a day), tokio (3.1M real downloads a day), tower (2.3M real downloads a day). Of the 8 we list, the most used is tokio, and 5 shipped a release in the last year. futures-lite itself gets 763,457 a day with 1,109 dependents.
Every alternative we found
| Alternative | Real downloads a day | vs futures-lite | Dependents | Last release | Why it is listed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| atomic-waker Established | 1,911,010 | 2.50x | 116 | 3.1y | category Asynchronous, category Concurrency, keyword "async", keyword "futures" | compare |
| tokio Foundational | 3,098,313 | 4.06x | 78,796 | 3d | category Asynchronous, keyword "async", keyword "futures" | compare |
| tower Widely used | 2,342,590 | 3.07x | 5,816 | 9mo | category Asynchronous, keyword "async", keyword "futures" | compare |
| tower-http Widely used | 2,044,149 | 2.68x | 3,782 | 54d | category Asynchronous, keyword "async", keyword "futures" | compare |
| tonic Widely used | 1,214,889 | 1.59x | 3,752 | 6mo | category Asynchronous, keyword "async", keyword "futures" | compare |
| tracing-futures Established | 243,931 | 0.32x | 355 | 5.7y | category Asynchronous, keyword "async", keyword "futures" | compare |
| actix-rt Established | 151,547 | 0.20x | 467 | 41d | category Asynchronous, keyword "async", keyword "futures" | compare |
| async-channel Widely used | 881,815 | 1.16x | 1,037 | 16mo | category Asynchronous, category Concurrency, 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 futures-lite; 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 futures-lite: 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 futures-lite, 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