Rust + Axum + SQLx + Utoipa Minimal REST API

Quick Start

• Git clone the repo
• Move into the root
• cargo run
• visit localhost:3000/docs to see the interactive OpenAPI / Swagger UI

Summary

A lightweight REST API for managing users, built with:

• Axum for the async web framework
• SQLx for compile-time safe SQL queries
• Utoipa for automatic OpenAPI documentation

Features

• Fast and safe: Built in async Rust, combining performance with safety guarantees
  • Very resource efficient
• Type-safe SQL: All queries are validated at compile time with sqlx
• Self-documenting API: OpenAPI docs are generated directly from the route definitions using utoipa
• Developer-friendly: Simple cargo watch -x check -x test -x run dev cycle
• Health check endpoint: Easily monitored with Prometheus or external uptime tools
• Basic endpoint tests included — easy to extend to full integration tests
• Deployable to AWS Lambda in just a few lines of code
• Could also be run on a small EC2 instance or ECS container
  • On premises, use Docker to run the app in a container on local hardware
• Low cost on AWS:
  • ~$1.20 per million requests using Lambda + API Gateway
• Clean architecture:
  • Separation of routes, state, and error handling makes it Lambda- and container-friendly

What’s Next

• Add schemars to help create a connection between the structs and the database structure
• Add full integration tests for DB + API behavior using Schemathesis or similar against the public API and docs
• Set up a CI/CD pipeline for building, testing, and deploying the app