Crates / native-tls / Alternatives
Rust crate alternatives · data Oct 24, 2026
Alternatives to native-tls
Short answerThe closest alternatives to native-tls on crates.io data are rustls (2.8M real downloads a day), tokio-rustls (2.3M real downloads a day), rustls-pki-types (2.2M real downloads a day). Of the 8 we list, the most used is rustls, and 6 shipped a release in the last year. native-tls itself gets 764,866 a day with 853 dependents.
Every alternative we found
| Alternative | Real downloads a day | vs native-tls | Dependents | Last release | Why it is listed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| rustls Widely used | 2,763,314 | 3.61x | 5,286 | 10d | category Cryptography, category Network programming | side by side |
| tokio-rustls Widely used | 2,299,591 | 3.01x | 2,458 | 26d | category Cryptography, category Network programming | compare |
| rustls-pki-types Established | 2,178,757 | 2.85x | 910 | 3mo | category Cryptography, category Network programming | compare |
| rustls-native-certs Established | 1,774,553 | 2.32x | 761 | 11d | category Cryptography, category Network programming | compare |
| rustls-pemfile Widely used | 945,078 | 1.24x | 1,378 | 2.1y | category Cryptography, category Network programming | compare |
| sct Pulled in | 474,383 | 0.62x | 7 | 3.0y | category Cryptography, category Network programming | compare |
| rustls-platform-verifier Established | 996,205 | 1.30x | 264 | 30d | keyword "tls" | compare |
| whoami Established | 872,045 | 1.14x | 481 | 2mo | keyword "platform" | compare |
How to choose
- Same job, not the same API. Each line is listed because it shares a crates.io category or keyword with native-tls; 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 native-tls: 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 native-tls, 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: Widely used and steady. 2,763,314 real downloads a day.rustlsRust crate. Rustls is a modern TLS library written in Rust. Real use: 2.8M downloads a day on quiet days; 5,286 crates depend on it.Read it next →Also worth your time