Crates / pulldown-cmark / Alternatives
Rust crate alternatives · data Oct 24, 2026
Alternatives to pulldown-cmark
Short answerThe closest alternatives to pulldown-cmark on crates.io data are regex-automata (3.6M real downloads a day), regex (3.4M real downloads a day), aho-corasick (3.3M real downloads a day). Of the 8 we list, the most used is regex-automata, and 4 shipped a release in the last year. pulldown-cmark itself gets 625,693 a day with 1,909 dependents.
Every alternative we found
| Alternative | Real downloads a day | vs pulldown-cmark | Dependents | Last release | Why it is listed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| regex-automata Established | 3,575,277 | 5.71x | 210 | 3mo | category Text processing | compare |
| regex Foundational | 3,355,026 | 5.36x | 24,288 | 3mo | category Text processing | compare |
| aho-corasick Established | 3,331,047 | 5.32x | 655 | 3mo | category Text processing | compare |
| strsim Established | 2,956,166 | 4.72x | 733 | 2.6y | category Text processing | compare |
| unicode-width Widely used | 2,194,046 | 3.51x | 3,230 | 13mo | category Text processing | compare |
| utf8_iter Pulled in | 2,136,300 | 3.41x | 12 | 2.9y | category Text processing | compare |
| convert_case Widely used | 1,687,092 | 2.70x | 1,213 | 58d | category Text processing | compare |
| matchers Pulled in | 1,581,741 | 2.53x | 3 | 2.3y | category Text processing | compare |
How to choose
- Same job, not the same API. Each line is listed because it shares a crates.io category or keyword with pulldown-cmark; 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 pulldown-cmark: 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 pulldown-cmark, 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 steady. 3,575,277 real downloads a day.regex-automataRust crate. Automata construction and matching using regular expressions. Real use: 3.6M downloads a day on quiet days; 210 crates depend on it.Read it next →Also worth your time