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GoFr vs Fiber

Summary

Fiber is an Express-inspired HTTP framework built on fasthttp — a great choice when you want a familiar API for Node.js refugees and high HTTP throughput. GoFr sits on net/http and has a wider scope: alongside HTTP routing it bundles OpenTelemetry tracing, Prometheus metrics, datasource clients, gRPC, GraphQL, WebSockets, Pub/Sub, cron, migrations, and circuit breakers. Different trade-offs, both open source — pick whichever fits the work in front of you.

What Fiber is great at

  • Performance — built on fasthttp, regularly outperforms net/http-based frameworks on synthetic benchmarks.
  • Express-like API — feels natural for developers from Node.js.
  • Built-in WebSocket — rich HTTP feature set out of the box.
  • Active ecosystem — many official middleware packages.

Where they diverge

HTTP foundation

Fiber's foundation is fasthttp, which is not compatible with net/http. Some Go libraries assume http.ResponseWriter/http.Request and won't drop into a Fiber handler without an adapter. GoFr is built on net/http, so the standard library and any net/http-compatible middleware works.

Scope beyond HTTP

Fiber focuses on HTTP. For other protocols, you'd add separate libraries (which works well — the Go ecosystem has good options for each). GoFr bundles those protocols under the same configuration and observability:

Go
app.RegisterService(serviceDesc, impl) // gRPC service
app.GraphQLQuery("user", userResolver)
app.Subscribe("orders", orderHandler)
app.AddCronJob("0 * * * *", "billing", run) // every hour at :00

Observability and datasources

Fiber middleware exists for OpenTelemetry and Prometheus, but you wire them in. In GoFr, traces / metrics / structured logs are emitted by default with no setup beyond pointing at your collectors via env vars. GoFr ships clients for MySQL, PostgreSQL, Mongo, Redis, Cassandra, ClickHouse, Kafka, NATS, S3, GCS, and a dozen more — all auto-instrumented.

When GoFr might be a good fit

  • You'd like gRPC, Pub/Sub, GraphQL, WebSockets, or cron alongside HTTP without separately wiring them up.
  • OpenTelemetry tracing and Prometheus metrics by default fit your operational model.
  • Auto-instrumented database clients save you wiring time you'd rather spend elsewhere.
  • You're maintaining several services and would prefer a single configuration model across them.

Migration

Already on Fiber? See the Migrate from Fiber guide for concrete code translations.

Frequently asked