blessed-rs/data/crates.json

{
    "crate_groups": [
        {
            "slug": "common",
            "name": "Common",
            "description": "Very commonly used crates that everyone should know about",
            "subgroups": [
                {
                    "slug": "general",
                    "name": "General",
                    "description": "General purpose ",
                    "purposes": [
                        {
                            "name": "Random numbers",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "rand",
                                "notes": "De facto random number generation library split out from the standard library"
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "UUIDs",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "uuid",
                                "notes": "Implements generating and parsing UUIDs and a number of utility functions"
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "Serialization (JSON, YAML, etc)",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "serde",
                                "notes": "De facto serialization library. Use in conjunction with sub-crates like serde_json for the specific format that you are using."
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "Regular Expressions",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "regex",
                                "notes": "De facto regex library. Very fast, but does not support fancier features such as backtracking."
                            }, 
                            {
                                "name": "fancy_regex",
                                "notes": "Use if need features such as backtracking which regex doesn't support"
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "Temporary files",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "tempfile",
                                "notes": "Supports both temporary files and temporary directories"
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "Gzip (de)compression",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "flate2",
                                "notes": "Uses a pure-Rust implementation by default. Use feature flags to opt in to system zlib."
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "Time & Date",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "time",
                                "notes": "The original datetime crate which was split out of std pre-rust-1.0. Preferrable if covers your needs, but it's quite limited in what it provides."
                            }, {
                                "name": "chrono",
                                "notes": "The most comphrehensive and full-featured datetime library, but more complex because of it."
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "Insertion-ordered map",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "indexmap",
                                "notes": "A HashMap that seperately keeps track of insertion order and allows you to efficiently iterate over it's elements in that order"
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "Stack-allocated arrays",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "arrayvec",
                                "notes": "Arrays that are ONLY stack-allocated with fixed capacity"
                            }, {
                                "name": "smallvec",
                                "notes": "Arrays that are stack-allocated with fallback to the heap if the fixed stack capacity is exceeded"
                            }, {
                                "name": "tinyvec",
                                "notes": "Stack allocated arrays in 100% safe Rust code but requires items to implement the Default trait."
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "HTTP Requests",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "reqwest",
                                "notes": "Full-fat HTTP client. Can be used in both synchronous and asynchronous code. Requires tokio runtime."
                            }, {
                                "name": "ureq",
                                "notes": "Minimal synchronous HTTP client focussed on simplicity and minimising dependencies."
                            }]
                        }
                    ]
                },
                {
                    "slug": "error-handling",
                    "name": "Error Handling",
                    "description": "Crates for more easily handling errors",
                    "purposes": [
                        {
                            "name": "For applications",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "anyhow",
                                "notes": "Provides a boxed error type that can hold any error, and helpers for generating an application-level stack trace."
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "For libraries",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "thiserror",
                                "notes": "Helps with generating boilerplate for enum-style error types."
                            }]
                        }
                    ]
                },
                {
                    "slug": "logging",
                    "name": "Logging",
                    "description": "Crates for logging. Note that in general you will need a seperate crate for actually printing/storing the logs",
                    "purposes": [
                        {
                            "name": "Text-based logging",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "tracing",
                                "notes": "Tracing is now the go-to crate for logging."
                            }, {
                                "name": "log",
                                "notes": "An older and simpler crate if your needs are simple and you are not using any async code."
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "Structured logging",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "tracing",
                                "notes": "Tracing is now the go-to crate for logging."
                            }, {
                                "name": "slog",
                                "notes": "Structured logging"
                            }]
                        }
                    ]
                },
                {
                    "slug": "lang-extensions",
                    "name": "Language Extensions",
                    "description": "General purpose utility crates that extend language and/or stdlib functionality.",
                    "purposes": [
                        {
                            "name": "Lazy static variable initialization",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "once_cell",
                                "notes": "Newer crate with more ergonomic API. On track to be incorporated into the standard library. Should be preferred for all new projects."
                            }, {
                                "name": "lazy_static",
                                "notes": "Older crate. API is less convenient, but crate is stable and maintained."
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "Iterator helpers",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "itertools",
                                "notes": "A bunch of useful methods on iterators that aren't in the stdlib"
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "Abstracting over different number types",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "num",
                                "notes": "Traits like Number, Add, etc that allow you write functions that are generic over the specific numeric type"
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "Endian conversion",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "byteorder",
                                "notes": "Utility functions to convert between different endianness or read/write data with a specific endianness"
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "Bitflags",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "bitflags",
                                "notes": "Strongly typed bitflag types"
                            }]
                        }
                    ]
                },
                {
                    "slug": "system",
                    "name": "System",
                    "description": "For low-level interaction with the underling platform / operating system",
                    "purposes": [
                        {
                            "name": "Memory mapping files",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "memmap",
                                "notes": ""
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "Libc",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "libc",
                                "notes": "Bindings for directly calling libc functions."
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "Windows (OS)",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "windows-rs",
                                "notes": "The official Microsoft-provided crate for interacting with windows APIs"
                            }, {
                                "name": "winapi",
                                "notes": "Older binding to the windows APIs. Unofficial, but more complete than windows-rs"
                            }]
                        }
                    ]
                }
            ]
        },
        {
            "slug": "networking",
            "name": "Networking",
            "description": "TCP, HTTP, GRPc, etc. And the executors required to do asynchronous networking.",
            "subgroups": [
                {
                    "slug": "async-executors",
                    "name": "Async Executors",
                    "description": "To do async programming using the async-await in Rust you need a runtime to execute drive your Futures.",
                    "purposes": [
                        {
                            "name": "General purpose",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "tokio",
                                "notes": "The oldest async runtime in the Rust ecosystem and still the most widely supported. Recommended for new projects."
                            }, {
                                "name": "async-std",
                                "notes": "A newer option that is very similar to tokio. It's API more closely mirrors the std library, but it doesn't have as much traction as Tokio."
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "io_uring",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "glommio",
                                "notes": "Use if you need io_uring support. Still somewhat experimental but rapidly maturing."
                            }]
                        }
                    ]
                },
                {
                    "slug": "http-foundations",
                    "name": "HTTP",
                    "description": "To do async programming using the async-await in Rust you need a runtime to execute drive your Futures.",
                    "purposes": [
                        {
                            "name": "Types & Interfaces",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "http",
                                "notes": "The `http` crate doesn't actually contain an HTTP implementation. Just types and interfaces to help interoperability."
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "Low-level HTTP Implementation",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "hyper",
                                "notes": "A low-level HTTP implementation (both client and server). Implements HTTP 1, 2, and 3. Requires the tokio async runtime."
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "TLS / SSL",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "rustls",
                                "notes": "A portable pure-rust implementation of TLS"
                            }, {
                                "name": "rust-native-tls",
                                "notes": "Delegates to the system TLS implementations on windows and macOS, and uses OpenSSL on linux."
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "HTTP Client",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "reqwest",
                                "notes": "Full-fat HTTP client. Can be used in both synchronous and asynchronous code. Requires tokio runtime."
                            },{
                                "name": "surf",
                                "notes": "Client that uses the async-std runtime rather than the tokio runtime."
                            }, {
                                "name": "ureq",
                                "notes": "Minimal synchronous HTTP client focussed on simplicity and minimising dependencies."
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "HTTP Server",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "axum",
                                "notes": "A minimal and ergonomic framework. An official part of the tokio project. Recommend for most new projects."
                            }, {
                                "name": "tide",
                                "notes": "Similar to Axum, but based on async-std rather than tokio"
                            }, {
                                "name": "actix-web",
                                "notes": "A performance focussed framework. All Rust frameworks are fast, but choose actix-web if you need the absolutely maximum performance."
                            }, {
                                "name": "poem",
                                "notes": "Automatically generates OpenAPI defintions."
                            }, {
                                "name": "warp",
                                "notes": "Very similar to axum but with a quirkier API. This is a solid framework, but you should probably prefer Axum unless you particular like the API"
                            }, {
                                "name": "rocket",
                                "notes": "Focussed on ergonomics. This is a solid framework, however development has stalled. Avoid for new projects."
                            }]
                        }
                    ]
                },
                {
                    "slug": "websockets",
                    "name": "Websockets",
                    "description": "This section includes libraries for you to use just websockets. However note that many of the HTTP server frameworks in the section above also support websockets",
                    "purposes": [
                        {
                            "name": "Low-level",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "tungstenite-rs",
                                "notes": "Low-level crate that others build on"
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "General Purpose",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "tokio-tungstenite",
                                "notes": "If you are using the tokio executor"
                            }, {
                                "name": "async-tungstenite",
                                "notes": "If you are using the async-std executor"
                            }]
                        }
                    ]
                },
                {
                    "slug": "grpc",
                    "name": "gRPC",
                    "description": "",
                    "purposes": [
                        {
                            "name": "General Purpose",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "tonic",
                                "notes": "gRPC over HTTP/2 with full support for asynchronous code. Works with tokio"
                            }]
                        }
                    ]
                }
            ]
        },
        {
            "slug": "cli-tools",
            "name": "CLIs",
            "description": "",
            "subgroups": [
                {
                    "slug": "argument-parsing",
                    "name": "Argument Parsing",
                    "description": "See <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https://github.com/rust-cli/argparse-benchmarks-rs\">argparse-benchmarks-rs</a> for a full comparison of the crates mentioned here and more.",
                    "purposes": [
                        {
                            "name": "Fully-featured",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "clap",
                                "notes": "Ergonomic, supports everything, and is fast at runtime. However compile times can be slow"
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "Minimal",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "lexopt",
                                "notes": "Fast compile times, fast runtime, pedantic about correctness. API is less ergonomic"
                            }, {
                                "name": "pico-args",
                                "notes": "Fast compile times, fast runtime, more lax about correctness. API is more ergonomic"
                            }]
                        }
                    ]
                },
                {
                    "slug": "utility",
                    "name": "Utility",
                    "description": "Helpers that are often useful when implementing CLIs",
                    "purposes": [
                        {
                            "name": "Globbing",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "globset",
                                "notes": "High-performance globbing that allows multiple globs to be evaluated at once"
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "Directory walking",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "walkdir",
                                "notes": "Basic recursive filesystem walking."
                            }, {
                                "name": "ignore",
                                "notes": "Recursive filesystem walking that respects ignore files (like .gitignore)"
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "File watching",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "watchexec",
                                "notes": "Watch files or directories and execute a function when they change"
                            }]
                        }
                    ]
                },
                {
                    "slug": "rendering",
                    "name": "Terminal Rendering",
                    "description": "For fancy terminal rendering and TUIs. The crates recommended here work cross-platform (including windows).",
                    "purposes": [
                        {
                            "name": "Coloured Output",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "termcolor",
                                "notes": "Cross-platform terminal colour output"
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "Full TUI library",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "crossterm",
                                "notes": "Cross-platform terminal rendering and event handling"
                            }]
                        }
                    ]
                }
            ]
        },
        {
            "slug": "concurrency",
            "name": "Concurrency",
            "description": "",
            "subgroups": [
                {
                    "slug": "data-structures",
                    "name": "Data Structures",
                    "description": "",
                    "purposes": [
                        {
                            "name": "Mutex",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "parking_lot",
                                "notes": "std::mutex also works fine. But Parking Lot is faster."
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "Atomic pointer swapping",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "arc_swap",
                                "notes": "Useful for sharing data that has many readers but few writers"
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "Concurrent HashMap",
                            "notes": "See <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https://github.com/xacrimon/conc-map-bench\">conc-map-bench</a> for comparative benchmarks of concurrent HashMaps.",
                            "crates": [{
                                "name": "dashmap",
                                "notes": "The fastest for general purpose workloads"
                            }, {
                                "name": "flurry",
                                "notes": "Particularly good for read-heavy workloads."
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "Channels",
                            "notes": "See <a href=\"https://docs.rs/tokio/latest/tokio/sync/mpsc/index.html#communicating-between-sync-and-async-code\">communicating-between-sync-and-async-code</a> for notes on when to use async-specific channels vs general purpose channels.",
                            "crates": [
                            {
                                "name": "crossbeam_channel",
                                "notes": "The absolute fastest channel implementation available. Implements Go-like 'select' feature."
                            }, {
                                "name": "flume",
                                "notes": "Smaller and simpler than crossbeam_channel and almost as fast"
                            },
                            {
                                "name": "postage",
                                "notes": "Channels that integrate nicely with async code"
                            }]
                        },
                        {
                            "name": "Parallel computation",
                            "crates": [
                            {
                                "name": "rayon",
                                "notes": "Convert sequential computation into parallel computation with one call - `par_iter` instead of `iter`"
                            }]
                        }
                    ]
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}