Crates / inventory
Rust crate · real downloads · data Oct 24, 2026
inventory downloads, and should you depend on it?
Typed distributed plugin registration crates.io · docs · repository
Owned on crates.io by dtolnay · alternatives · is it still maintained?
Widely used and steady.
inventory: 1,291 crates depend on it; downloads jump on release days (1.4x the baseline).
How this verdict is decided (4 rules)
- Usage: crates.io reverse dependencies (crates that list it as a dependency): 10,000+ = foundational, 1,000+ = widely used, 100+ = established, under 100 = few direct dependents.
- Direction: the median quiet day in the last 30 days of the window against the first 30, read against the median tracked crate (the whole field moved +39% from late summer to October, so a raw trend says nothing). 10%+ ahead of the field = gaining; 10%+ behind = losing ground; otherwise steady. Steady with no release in 2+ years = quiet for years.
- Release spikes: the median release-window day against the quiet-day baseline: under 1.15x = no spike, 1.15x to 1.3x = small bumps, 1.3x or more = jumps on release days.
- Release recency: days since the newest version that was not yanked, from crates.io publish times.
release window (release day + next day)quiet dayquiet-day median · download the 89 days as CSV
The numbers in one paragraphinventory got 40,577,847 crates.io downloads from Jul 27, 2026 to Oct 23, 2026. 3% of them landed within 2 days of one of its 1 release. On the other 87 quiet days it got a median of 449,319 a day, about 3,145,233 a week. Capping release days at that baseline leaves 40,189,509 release-adjusted downloads for the window.
What this means if you're choosing a dependency
- Well trodden. 1,291 crates depend on it, so common problems tend to have public answers and breaking changes get noticed fast.
- Actively released. 0.3.25 shipped 17 days ago (Oct 7, 2026).
- Still pre-1.0 (0.3.25). Under Cargo's semver rules a 0.x minor bump may break you, so pin the minor version (
inventory = "0.3") and read the changelog on upgrades. - Fit check: license MIT OR Apache-2.0, edition 2021, needs Rust 1.68 or newer (from the latest version's manifest).
- Compare it by the baseline, not the raw count. 3% of its 40,577,847 downloads in the window landed within 2 days of a release; the steady number is 449,319 a day.
Alternatives that do a similar job
Crates that share its crates.io category or keywords, most similar first. Each line is the crate's own description, then how it compares on the same data.
Its place in the dependency graph
Built on inventory
1 of the 1000 crates we track depend on it directly (biggest first).
inventory builds on
Tracked crates its latest version (0.3.25) depends on.
What the chart says
- Weekend quiet days ran at 51% of weekday quiet days (263,664 vs 520,354). A dip that deep is the signature of work-week CI pipelines and developers building on weekdays.
- Biggest day: 809,514 on Oct 22, 2026, a quiet day with no release nearby.
Every number
| All-time downloads | 147,599,346 (rank #726 on crates.io by all-time downloads) |
| Downloads in the window | 40,577,847 (Jul 27, 2026 to Oct 23, 2026, 89 days) |
| Within 2 days of a release | 1,286,976 (3.2%) |
| Quiet-day median (baseline) | 449,319 a day; weekdays 520,354, weekends 263,664 |
| Release-adjusted downloads | 40,189,509 (release-window days capped at the baseline) |
| Baseline rank | #726 of the 1000 crates we track |
| Quiet-day trend | +32% raw, -5% against the median tracked crate (+39%) |
| Releases in the window | 1 |
| Versions published, ever | 43 |
| Latest version | 0.3.25, published Oct 7, 2026 (license MIT OR Apache-2.0, edition 2021, MSRV 1.68) |
| First published | Jul 22, 2015 |
| Reverse dependencies | 1,291 |
Releases in the window
Each one opens a 2-day release window on the chart.
| Version | Published | Downloads that version got (lifetime) |
|---|---|---|
| 0.3.25 | Oct 7, 2026 | 1,668,207 |
How we compute this
crates.io counts every download, including CI runners, mirrors and bots that fetch each new version, so raw counts run high (why, in The Manual). We split the last 89 days into release windows (the day a version of inventory was published, plus the next day) and quiet days, and use the median quiet day as the baseline: an upper bound on steady use, never a head count. The method and data come from our study of 90 days of crates.io data from 69 crates, featured in This Week in Rust #674; check any crate live with the real-downloads checker.
Badge for your README
Maintainers can show the baseline in a README. It is optional, updates when we refresh the data, and links back here. Preview, then copy:
README, light
README, dark
Publishing a crate of your own? How to publish a Rust crate to crates.io, step by step.
Categories
Sources
- Daily downloads: crates.io API, /crates/inventory/downloads (last 90 days, all versions), fetched Oct 24, 2026.
- Versions and publish times: crates.io API, /crates/inventory/versions, same fetch.
- Reverse dependencies: crates.io reverse dependencies, same fetch. Dependency edges between tracked crates: each crate's default version, crates.io API.
- Fetched politely (one request every 2 seconds, identified User-Agent) per the crates.io data access policy. Data is crates.io's; the release-window split, baseline and verdict rules are ours, CC BY 4.0.
Up next
Next in build utils: Next in Build Utils by real downloads: 128,219 a day, 1 dependents. Few direct dependents and losing ground.chrono-tz-buildRust crate. internal build script for chrono-tz. Real use: 128K downloads a day on quiet days; 1 crates depend on it.Read it next →Also worth your time