Crates / indenter / Alternatives
Rust crate alternatives · data Oct 24, 2026
Alternatives to indenter
Short answerThe closest alternatives to indenter on crates.io data are powerfmt (1.9M real downloads a day), thiserror (5M real downloads a day), anyhow (2.9M real downloads a day). Of the 8 we list, the most used is thiserror, and 5 shipped a release in the last year. indenter itself gets 305,993 a day with 58 dependents.
Every alternative we found
| Alternative | Real downloads a day | vs indenter | Dependents | Last release | Why it is listed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| powerfmt Pulled in | 1,889,786 | 6.18x | 5 | 19d | keyword "display", keyword "fmt" | compare |
| thiserror Foundational | 5,048,791 | 16.50x | 75,923 | 31d | keyword "error" | compare |
| anyhow Foundational | 2,875,638 | 9.40x | 52,113 | 3mo | keyword "error" | compare |
| displaydoc Established | 2,547,279 | 8.32x | 270 | 3mo | keyword "display" | compare |
| derive_more Widely used | 1,604,594 | 5.24x | 3,690 | 10mo | keyword "display" | compare |
| quick-error Established | 1,130,044 | 3.69x | 293 | 5.5y | keyword "error" | compare |
| proc-macro-error Established | 513,716 | 1.68x | 603 | 6.2y | keyword "error" | compare |
| proc-macro-error2 Established | 492,199 | 1.61x | 103 | 2.1y | keyword "error" | compare |
How to choose
- Same job, not the same API. Each line is listed because it shares a crates.io category or keyword with indenter; 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 indenter: 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 indenter, 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 steady. 1,889,786 real downloads a day.powerfmtRust crate. `powerfmt` is a library that provides utilities for formatting values. This crate makes it significantly easier to support filling to a minimum width with...Read it next →Also worth your time