fasthttp
Fast HTTP package for Go. Tuned for high performance. Zero memory allocations in hot paths. Up to 10x faster than net/http
fasthttp is a Go HTTP library built for extreme throughput, up to 10x faster than Go's standard library by reusing memory instead of allocating it, designed for ad servers, proxies, and any service handling hundreds of thousands of requests per second.
Fasthttp is a high-speed HTTP library for Go — the programming language, not a product for end users. HTTP is the protocol that powers web communication: every time a browser requests a webpage or an app calls an API, it uses HTTP. Go has a built-in HTTP library called net/http, and fasthttp is an alternative to it, optimized for speed.
The key design choice behind fasthttp is avoiding memory allocation in performance-critical code paths. In Go, creating new memory objects during a request causes the garbage collector to do extra cleanup work, which adds latency. Fasthttp reuses objects (pooling them) so garbage collection happens far less often, keeping response times consistently low even under extreme load.
Benchmarks in the README show fasthttp is up to 6 times faster than Go's standard HTTP library when handling many requests per second. One known production user serves up to 200,000 requests per second from a single physical server.
The README itself warns that fasthttp is not for most projects — if your server handles a normal load, the built-in Go library is simpler and more compatible with the ecosystem. Fasthttp is purpose-built for situations where you need to squeeze maximum throughput: ad servers, proxies, edge computing nodes, or any service that must handle thousands of tiny requests per second at sub-millisecond latency.
Where it fits
- Build a Go HTTP server that handles hundreds of thousands of tiny requests per second at sub-millisecond latency
- Replace net/http in a Go service that is hitting performance limits under heavy traffic
- Build a high-speed reverse proxy or edge computing node in Go
- Serve an ad-serving backend in Go where consistent low latency under extreme load is critical