I recently built a Rust web framework called Willow Forge:
👉 https://github.com/lechatthecat/willow-forge
It’s a Laravel-like layer on top of axum, designed to give you structure, productivity, and a batteries-included developer experience — something I personally missed when building apps in Rust.
What Willow Forge Is
Willow Forge is a productivity-focused framework for Rust web development, inspired by Laravel and Rails.
It provides:
- MVC-style project structure
- Controllers, middleware
- Request validation
- Server-side HTML rendering + JSON APIs
- Routing separation (
web.rs/api.rs) - Migrations
Under the hood, it uses axum, but instead of starting from a blank slate every time, you get a structured foundation.
Why I Built It
Every time I started a new Rust web project with axum, I found myself rebuilding the same things:
- Folder structure
- Routing organization
- Validation layer
- Middleware grouping
- Basic app architecture
Rust gives you power — but not much guidance.
In contrast, frameworks like Laravel or Rails give you:
- A clear place for everything
- Consistent patterns
- Fast onboarding
- Less decision fatigue
I wanted that experience — but in Rust.
Who This Is For
Willow Forge is probably a good fit if:
- You like Laravel style structure
- You don’t want to reinvent app architecture every time
- You’re building:
- CRUD apps
- internal tools
- dashboards
- SSR + API combined apps
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