spikard 0.3.3

High-performance Python web framework with a Rust core. Build REST APIs, WebSockets, and SSE services with FastAPI/Litestar-style decorators backed by Axum and Tower-HTTP. 2.8x faster than FastAPI.

Spikard Python

High-performance Python web framework with a Rust core. Build REST APIs, WebSockets, and SSE services with FastAPI/Litestar-style decorators backed by Axum and Tower-HTTP.

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Installation

Via pip:

pip install spikard

Pre-built wheels are available for macOS, Linux, and Windows. If a wheel isn't available for your platform, pip will build from source (requires Rust toolchain).

From source (development):

cd packages/python
uv sync
# or
pip install -e .

Requirements:

• Python 3.10+
• Rust toolchain (only required for building from source)

Quick Start

from spikard import Spikard
from msgspec import Struct

class User(Struct):
    id: int
    name: str
    email: str

app = Spikard()

@app.get("/users/{user_id}")
async def get_user(user_id: int) -> User:
    return User(id=user_id, name="Alice", email="[e-mail]")

@app.post("/users")
async def create_user(user: User) -> User:
    # Automatic validation via msgspec
    return user

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run(port=8000)

Core Features

Route Registration

Spikard supports both FastAPI-style (instance decorators) and Litestar-style (standalone decorators) patterns.

FastAPI-style (instance decorators):

from spikard import Spikard

app = Spikard()

@app.get("/users")
async def list_users():
    return {"users": []}

@app.post("/users")
async def create_user(user: User):
    return user

Litestar-style (standalone decorators):

from spikard import Spikard, get, post, put, patch, delete

app = Spikard()

@get("/users")
async def list_users():
    return {"users": []}

@post("/users")
async def create_user(user: User):
    return user

@put("/users/{user_id}")
async def update_user(user_id: int, user: User):
    return user

@patch("/users/{user_id}")
async def patch_user(user_id: int, updates: dict):
    return updates

@delete("/users/{user_id}")
async def delete_user(user_id: int):
    return {"deleted": True}

All HTTP methods supported:

• @app.get() / @get() - GET requests
• @app.post() / @post() - POST requests
• @app.put() / @put() - PUT requests
• @app.patch() / @patch() - PATCH requests
• @app.delete() / @delete() - DELETE requests
• @app.head() / @head() - HEAD requests
• @app.options() / @options() - OPTIONS requests
• @app.trace() / @trace() - TRACE requests

Path Parameters

@app.get("/users/{user_id}")
async def get_user(user_id: int):
    return {"id": user_id}

@app.get("/posts/{post_id}/comments/{comment_id}")
async def get_comment(post_id: int, comment_id: int):
    return {"post_id": post_id, "comment_id": comment_id}

Query Parameters

from spikard import Query

@app.get("/search")
async def search(
    q: str,
    limit: int = Query(default=10),
    offset: int = Query(default=0)
):
    return {"query": q, "limit": limit, "offset": offset}

Request Body Validation

Spikard supports multiple validation libraries. msgspec is the default and recommended for best performance.

With msgspec.Struct (recommended - fastest):

from msgspec import Struct

class CreatePost(Struct):
    title: str
    content: str
    tags: list[str] = []

@app.post("/posts")
async def create_post(post: CreatePost):
    return {"title": post.title, "tag_count": len(post.tags)}

Supported validation libraries:

• msgspec.Struct (default, zero-copy, fastest)
• Pydantic v2 BaseModel
• dataclasses

Dependency Injection

Register values or factories and inject by parameter name:

from spikard import Spikard
from spikard.di import Provide

app = Spikard()
app.provide("config", {"db_url": "postgresql://localhost/app"})
app.provide("db", Provide(lambda config: f"pool({config['db_url']})", depends_on=["config"], singleton=True))

@app.get("/stats")
async def stats(config: dict[str, str], db: str):
    return {"db": db, "env": config["db_url"]}

• TypedDict
• NamedTuple
• attrs classes

With Pydantic v2:

from pydantic import BaseModel, EmailStr

class User(BaseModel):
    name: str
    email: EmailStr

@app.post("/users")
async def create_user(user: User):
    return user.model_dump()

With dataclasses:

from dataclasses import dataclass

@dataclass
class Product:
    name: str
    price: float

@app.post("/products")
async def create_product(product: Product):
    return product

With plain JSON Schema dict:

user_schema = {
    "type": "object",
    "properties": {
        "name": {"type": "string"},
        "email": {"type": "string", "format": "email"}
    },
    "required": ["name", "email"]
}

@app.post("/users", request_schema=user_schema)
async def create_user(user: dict):
    # user is validated against schema
    return user

File Uploads

from spikard import UploadFile

@app.post("/upload")
async def upload_file(file: UploadFile):
    # Use aread() for async file reading
    content = await file.aread()
    return {
        "filename": file.filename,
        "size": file.size,
        "content_type": file.content_type,
        "content_length": len(content)
    }

Custom Responses

from spikard import Response

@app.post("/users")
async def create_user(user: User) -> Response:
    return Response(
        content=user,
        status_code=201,
        headers={"X-Custom": "value"}
    )

Streaming Responses

from spikard import StreamingResponse

async def generate_data():
    for i in range(10):
        yield f"data: {i}\n".encode()

@app.get("/stream")
async def stream():
    return StreamingResponse(generate_data())

Configuration

from spikard import Spikard, ServerConfig, CompressionConfig, RateLimitConfig

config = ServerConfig(
    host="0.0.0.0",
    port=8080,
    workers=4,
    enable_request_id=True,
    max_body_size=10 * 1024 * 1024,  # 10 MB
    request_timeout=30,
    compression=CompressionConfig(
        gzip=True,
        brotli=True,
        quality=6
    ),
    rate_limit=RateLimitConfig(
        per_second=100,
        burst=200
    )
)

app = Spikard(config=config)

Middleware Configuration

Compression:

from spikard import CompressionConfig

compression = CompressionConfig(
    gzip=True,          # Enable gzip
    brotli=True,        # Enable brotli
    min_size=1024,      # Min bytes to compress
    quality=6           # 0-11 for brotli, 0-9 for gzip
)

Rate Limiting:

from spikard import RateLimitConfig

rate_limit = RateLimitConfig(
    per_second=100,     # Max requests per second
    burst=200,          # Burst allowance
    ip_based=True       # Per-IP rate limiting
)

JWT Authentication:

from spikard import JwtConfig

jwt = JwtConfig(
    secret="your-secret-key",
    algorithm="HS256",  # HS256, HS384, HS512, RS256, etc.
    audience=["api.example.com"],
    issuer="auth.example.com",
    leeway=30  # seconds
)

Static Files:

from spikard import StaticFilesConfig

static = StaticFilesConfig(
    directory="./public",
    route_prefix="/static",
    index_file=True,
    cache_control="public, max-age=3600"
)

config = ServerConfig(static_files=[static])

OpenAPI Documentation:

from spikard.config import OpenApiConfig

openapi = OpenApiConfig(
    enabled=True,
    title="My API",
    version="1.0.0",
    description="API documentation",
    swagger_ui_path="/docs",
    redoc_path="/redoc"
)

config = ServerConfig(openapi=openapi)

Lifecycle Hooks

@app.on_request
async def log_request(request):
    print(f"{request.method} {request.path}")
    return request  # Must return request to continue

@app.pre_validation
async def check_auth(request):
    token = request.headers.get("Authorization")
    if not token:
        return Response({"error": "Unauthorized"}, status_code=401)
    return request

@app.pre_handler
async def rate_check(request):
    # Additional checks before handler
    return request

@app.on_response
async def add_headers(response):
    response.headers["X-Frame-Options"] = "DENY"
    return response

@app.on_error
async def log_error(response):
    print(f"Error: {response.status_code}")
    return response

WebSockets

from spikard import Spikard, websocket

app = Spikard()

@websocket("/ws")
async def chat_handler(message: dict) -> dict | None:
    """Handle incoming WebSocket messages."""
    print(f"Received: {message}")
    # Echo back the message
    return {"echo": message}

Server-Sent Events (SSE)

from spikard import Spikard, sse
import asyncio

app = Spikard()

@sse("/events")
async def event_stream():
    """Stream events to connected clients."""
    for i in range(10):
        await asyncio.sleep(1)
        yield {
            "count": i,
            "message": f"Event {i}",
            "timestamp": i
        }

Background Tasks

from spikard import background

async def heavy_processing(data: dict):
    """Async function that runs after response is sent."""
    # Heavy processing here
    pass

@app.post("/process")
async def process_data(data: dict):
    # Schedule async function to run in background
    background.run(heavy_processing(data))
    return {"status": "processing"}

Testing

from spikard import TestClient
import pytest

@pytest.fixture
def client():
    return TestClient(app)

@pytest.mark.asyncio
async def test_get_user(client):
    response = await client.get("/users/123")
    assert response.status_code == 200
    data = response.json()
    assert data["id"] == 123

@pytest.mark.asyncio
async def test_create_user(client):
    response = await client.post("/users", json={
        "name": "Alice",
        "email": "[e-mail]"
    })
    assert response.status_code == 201

WebSocket Testing

import json

@pytest.mark.asyncio
async def test_websocket(client):
    async with client.websocket("/ws") as ws:
        await ws.send(json.dumps({"message": "hello"}))
        response_text = await ws.recv()
        response = json.loads(response_text)
        assert response["echo"]["message"] == "hello"

SSE Testing

@pytest.mark.asyncio
async def test_sse(client):
    async with client.sse("/events") as sse:
        events = []
        async for event in sse:
            events.append(event.data)
            if len(events) >= 3:
                break
        assert len(events) == 3

Type Support

Spikard automatically extracts JSON schemas from:

• msgspec.Struct (recommended, fastest)
• Pydantic v2 BaseModel
• dataclasses
• TypedDict
• NamedTuple

All compile to JSON Schema for validation and OpenAPI generation.

Performance

vs FastAPI

Comprehensive comparison across 18 real-world workloads on Apple M4 Pro (100 concurrent connections):

Framework	Avg Throughput	Mean Latency	Difference
Spikard	35,779 req/s	7.44ms	baseline
FastAPI	12,776 req/s	7.90ms	-64% slower

Spikard is 2.8x faster than FastAPI with statistically significant improvements (p < 0.05).

Why Spikard is Faster

Rust-Powered Core:

• HTTP server built on Tokio and Hyper
• Tower middleware for zero-overhead routing
• No Python GIL contention for HTTP layer

Zero-Copy Optimizations:

• Direct PyO3 type construction (no JSON string serialization)
• Eliminates 30-40% conversion overhead vs serialize-then-parse
• msgspec integration for validation without extra allocations

Async-First Design:

• pyo3_async_runtimes for efficient coroutine handling
• Single event loop initialization per worker
• GIL release before awaiting Rust futures

Running the Server

# Development
app.run(host="127.0.0.1", port=8000)

# Production with multiple workers
config = ServerConfig(
    host="0.0.0.0",
    port=8080,
    workers=4
)
app.run(config=config)

Examples

The examples directory contains comprehensive demonstrations:

Python-specific examples:

• Dependency Injection - Basic DI patterns
• Database Integration - DI with database pools
• Additional examples in examples/

API Schemas (language-agnostic, can be used with code generation):

• Todo API - REST CRUD with validation
• File Service - File uploads/downloads
• Auth Service - JWT, API keys, OAuth
• Chat Service - WebSocket messaging
• Event Streams - SSE streaming

See examples/README.md for code generation instructions.

Documentation

• Main Project README
• Contributing Guide
• Architecture Decision Records
• Python Examples
• GitHub Discussions

Ecosystem Links

• Rust: Crates.io
• Node.js: npm (@spikard/node)
• Ruby: RubyGems
• PHP: Packagist
• WebAssembly: npm (@spikard/wasm)

License

MIT