Read about the latest features and improvements in Gin 1.11.0 on our official blog.
Gin is a high-performance HTTP web framework written in Go. It provides a Martini-like API but with significantly better performance—up to 40 times faster—thanks to httprouter. Gin is designed for building REST APIs, web applications, and microservices where speed and developer productivity are essential.
Why choose Gin?
Gin combines the simplicity of Express.js-style routing with Go's performance characteristics, making it ideal for:
- Building high-throughput REST APIs
- Developing microservices that need to handle many concurrent requests
- Creating web applications that require fast response times
- Prototyping web services quickly with minimal boilerplate
Gin's key features:
- Zero allocation router - Extremely memory-efficient routing with no heap allocations
- High performance - Benchmarks show superior speed compared to other Go web frameworks
- Middleware support - Extensible middleware system for authentication, logging, CORS, etc.
- Crash-free - Built-in recovery middleware prevents panics from crashing your server
- JSON validation - Automatic request/response JSON binding and validation
- Route grouping - Organize related routes and apply common middleware
- Error management - Centralized error handling and logging
- Built-in rendering - Support for JSON, XML, HTML templates, and more
- Extensible - Large ecosystem of community middleware and plugins
- Go version: Gin requires Go version 1.23 or above
- Basic Go knowledge: Familiarity with Go syntax and package management is helpful
With Go's module support, simply import Gin in your code and Go will automatically fetch it during build:
import "github.com/gin-gonic/gin"
Here's a complete example that demonstrates Gin's simplicity:
package main
import (
"net/http"
"github.com/gin-gonic/gin"
)
func main() {
// Create a Gin router with default middleware (logger and recovery)
r := gin.Default()
// Define a simple GET endpoint
r.GET("/ping", func(c *gin.Context) {
// Return JSON response
c.JSON(http.StatusOK, gin.H{
"message": "pong",
})
})
// Start server on port 8080 (default)
// Server will listen on 0.0.0.0:8080 (localhost:8080 on Windows)
r.Run()
}
Running the application:
-
Save the code above as
main.go
-
Run the application:
go run main.go
-
Open your browser and visit
http://localhost:8080/ping
-
You should see:
{"message":"pong"}
What this example demonstrates:
- Creating a Gin router with default middleware
- Defining HTTP endpoints with simple handler functions
- Returning JSON responses
- Starting an HTTP server
After running your first Gin application, explore these resources to learn more:
- Gin Quick Start Guide - Comprehensive tutorial with API examples and build configurations
- Example Repository - Ready-to-run examples demonstrating various Gin use cases:
- REST API development
- Authentication & middleware
- File uploads and downloads
- WebSocket connections
- Template rendering
- Go.dev API Documentation - Complete API reference with examples
The comprehensive documentation is available on gin-gonic.com in multiple languages:
Gin demonstrates exceptional performance compared to other Go web frameworks. It uses a custom version of HttpRouter for maximum efficiency. View detailed benchmarks →
Gin vs. Other Go Frameworks (GitHub API routing benchmark):
Benchmark name | (1) | (2) | (3) | (4) |
---|---|---|---|---|
BenchmarkGin_GithubAll | 43550 | 27364 ns/op | 0 B/op | 0 allocs/op |
BenchmarkAce_GithubAll | 40543 | 29670 ns/op | 0 B/op | 0 allocs/op |
BenchmarkAero_GithubAll | 57632 | 20648 ns/op | 0 B/op | 0 allocs/op |
BenchmarkBear_GithubAll | 9234 | 216179 ns/op | 86448 B/op | 943 allocs/op |
BenchmarkBeego_GithubAll | 7407 | 243496 ns/op | 71456 B/op | 609 allocs/op |
BenchmarkBone_GithubAll | 420 | 2922835 ns/op | 720160 B/op | 8620 allocs/op |
BenchmarkChi_GithubAll | 7620 | 238331 ns/op | 87696 B/op | 609 allocs/op |
BenchmarkDenco_GithubAll | 18355 | 64494 ns/op | 20224 B/op | 167 allocs/op |
BenchmarkEcho_GithubAll | 31251 | 38479 ns/op | 0 B/op | 0 allocs/op |
BenchmarkGocraftWeb_GithubAll | 4117 | 300062 ns/op | 131656 B/op | 1686 allocs/op |
BenchmarkGoji_GithubAll | 3274 | 416158 ns/op | 56112 B/op | 334 allocs/op |
BenchmarkGojiv2_GithubAll | 1402 | 870518 ns/op | 352720 B/op | 4321 allocs/op |
BenchmarkGoJsonRest_GithubAll | 2976 | 401507 ns/op | 134371 B/op | 2737 allocs/op |
BenchmarkGoRestful_GithubAll | 410 | 2913158 ns/op | 910144 B/op | 2938 allocs/op |
BenchmarkGorillaMux_GithubAll | 346 | 3384987 ns/op | 251650 B/op | 1994 allocs/op |
BenchmarkGowwwRouter_GithubAll | 10000 | 143025 ns/op | 72144 B/op | 501 allocs/op |
BenchmarkHttpRouter_GithubAll | 55938 | 21360 ns/op | 0 B/op | 0 allocs/op |
BenchmarkHttpTreeMux_GithubAll | 10000 | 153944 ns/op | 65856 B/op | 671 allocs/op |
BenchmarkKocha_GithubAll | 10000 | 106315 ns/op | 23304 B/op | 843 allocs/op |
BenchmarkLARS_GithubAll | 47779 | 25084 ns/op | 0 B/op | 0 allocs/op |
BenchmarkMacaron_GithubAll | 3266 | 371907 ns/op | 149409 B/op | 1624 allocs/op |
BenchmarkMartini_GithubAll | 331 | 3444706 ns/op | 226551 B/op | 2325 allocs/op |
BenchmarkPat_GithubAll | 273 | 4381818 ns/op | 1483152 B/op | 26963 allocs/op |
BenchmarkPossum_GithubAll | 10000 | 164367 ns/op | 84448 B/op | 609 allocs/op |
BenchmarkR2router_GithubAll | 10000 | 160220 ns/op | 77328 B/op | 979 allocs/op |
BenchmarkRivet_GithubAll | 14625 | 82453 ns/op | 16272 B/op | 167 allocs/op |
BenchmarkTango_GithubAll | 6255 | 279611 ns/op | 63826 B/op | 1618 allocs/op |
BenchmarkTigerTonic_GithubAll | 2008 | 687874 ns/op | 193856 B/op | 4474 allocs/op |
BenchmarkTraffic_GithubAll | 355 | 3478508 ns/op | 820744 B/op | 14114 allocs/op |
BenchmarkVulcan_GithubAll | 6885 | 193333 ns/op | 19894 B/op | 609 allocs/op |
- (1): Total Repetitions achieved in constant time, higher means more confident result
- (2): Single Repetition Duration (ns/op), lower is better
- (3): Heap Memory (B/op), lower is better
- (4): Average Allocations per Repetition (allocs/op), lower is better
Gin has a rich ecosystem of middleware for common web development needs. Explore community-contributed middleware:
-
gin-contrib - Official middleware collection including:
- Authentication (JWT, Basic Auth, Sessions)
- CORS, Rate limiting, Compression
- Logging, Metrics, Tracing
- Static file serving, Template engines
-
gin-gonic/contrib - Additional community middleware
Gin powers many high-traffic applications and services in production:
- gorush - High-performance push notification server
- fnproject - Container-native, serverless platform
- photoprism - AI-powered personal photo management
- lura - Ultra-performant API Gateway framework
- picfit - Real-time image processing server
- dkron - Distributed job scheduling system
Gin is the work of hundreds of contributors from around the world. We welcome and appreciate your contributions!
- 🐛 Report bugs - Help us identify and fix issues
- 💡 Suggest features - Share your ideas for improvements
- 📝 Improve documentation - Help make our docs clearer
- 🔧 Submit code - Fix bugs or implement new features
- 🧪 Write tests - Improve our test coverage
- Check out our CONTRIBUTING.md for detailed guidelines
- Join our community discussions and ask questions
All contributions are valued and help make Gin better for everyone!