Rust crate alternatives · data Oct 24, 2026
Alternatives to tower
Short answerThe closest alternatives to tower on crates.io data are actix-rt (152K real downloads a day), mio (3.3M real downloads a day), h2 (2.3M real downloads a day). Of the 8 we list, the most used is mio, and 5 shipped a release in the last year. tower itself gets 2,342,590 a day with 5,816 dependents.
Every alternative we found
| Alternative | Real downloads a day | vs tower | Dependents | Last release | Why it is listed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| actix-rt Established | 151,547 | 0.06x | 467 | 41d | category Asynchronous, category Network programming, keyword "async", keyword "futures" | side by side |
| mio Established | 3,332,252 | 1.42x | 624 | 21d | category Asynchronous, keyword "async", keyword "io" | side by side |
| h2 Established | 2,290,495 | 0.98x | 296 | 18d | category Asynchronous, category Network programming, keyword "async", keyword "non-blocking" | compare |
| futures Foundational | 2,405,900 | 1.03x | 26,505 | 2mo | category Asynchronous, keyword "async", keyword "futures" | compare |
| atomic-waker Established | 1,911,010 | 0.82x | 116 | 3.1y | category Asynchronous, keyword "async", keyword "futures" | compare |
| futures-lite Widely used | 763,457 | 0.33x | 1,109 | 15mo | category Asynchronous, keyword "async", keyword "futures" | compare |
| tracing-futures Established | 243,931 | 0.10x | 355 | 5.7y | category Asynchronous, keyword "async", keyword "futures" | compare |
| tokio-tungstenite Widely used | 1,029,416 | 0.44x | 3,629 | 3mo | category Asynchronous, category Network programming, keyword "io" | side by side |
How to choose
- Same job, not the same API. Each line is listed because it shares a crates.io category or keyword with tower; 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 tower: 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 tower, 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 losing ground. 151,547 real downloads a day.actix-rtRust crate. Tokio-based single-threaded async runtime for the Actix ecosystem. Real use: 152K downloads a day on quiet days; 467 crates depend on it.Read it next →Also worth your time