Crates / widestring / Alternatives
Rust crate alternatives · data Oct 24, 2026
Alternatives to widestring
Short answerThe closest alternatives to widestring on crates.io data are bstr (1.3M real downloads a day), compact_str (712K real downloads a day), utf16_iter (349K real downloads a day). Of the 8 we list, the most used is aho-corasick, and 5 shipped a release in the last year. widestring itself gets 308,184 a day with 319 dependents.
Every alternative we found
| Alternative | Real downloads a day | vs widestring | Dependents | Last release | Why it is listed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| bstr Established | 1,252,630 | 4.06x | 676 | 2mo | category Encoding, category Text processing, keyword "string" | side by side |
| compact_str Established | 712,106 | 2.31x | 575 | 3mo | category Encoding, category Text processing, keyword "string" | compare |
| utf16_iter Pulled in | 349,411 | 1.13x | 3 | 2.9y | category Encoding, category Text processing, keyword "utf-16" | compare |
| aho-corasick Established | 3,331,047 | 10.81x | 655 | 3mo | category Text processing, keyword "string" | compare |
| strsim Established | 2,956,166 | 9.59x | 733 | 2.6y | category Text processing, keyword "string" | compare |
| convert_case Widely used | 1,687,092 | 5.47x | 1,213 | 58d | category Text processing, keyword "string" | compare |
| simdutf8 Established | 965,252 | 3.13x | 220 | 2.1y | category Encoding, category No standard library, keyword "string" | compare |
| indoc Widely used | 810,408 | 2.63x | 1,667 | 15d | category No standard library, category Text processing, keyword "string" | compare |
How to choose
- Same job, not the same API. Each line is listed because it shares a crates.io category or keyword with widestring; 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 widestring: 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 widestring, 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. 1,252,630 real downloads a day.bstrRust crate. A string type that is not required to be valid UTF-8. Real use: 1.3M downloads a day on quiet days; 676 crates depend on it.Read it next →Also worth your time