Actix Web is one of the fastest web frameworks available. It uses Rust's type system for compile-time safety, async/await for concurrency, and extractors for ergonomic request handling.
Installation
toml
# Cargo.toml — dependencies
[dependencies]
actix-web = "4"
actix-rt = "2"
serde = { version = "1", features = ["derive"] }
serde_json = "1"
sqlx = { version = "0.7", features = ["runtime-tokio", "postgres", "macros"] }
tokio = { version = "1", features = ["full"] }
env_logger = "0.11"
Project Structure
# Recommended Actix Web project layout
src/
├── main.rs # Entry point and server config
├── config.rs # Configuration
├── routes/
│ ├── mod.rs # Route registration
│ ├── articles.rs # Article handlers
│ └── health.rs # Health check
├── models/
│ └── article.rs # Data structures
├── db/
│ └── article.rs # Database queries
├── middleware/
│ └── auth.rs # Auth middleware
└── errors.rs # Error types
Main and Server Setup
rust
// src/main.rs — application entry point
use actix_web::{web, App, HttpServer, middleware::Logger};
use sqlx::postgres::PgPoolOptions;
mod routes;
mod models;
mod db;
mod errors;
#[actix_web::main]
async fn main() -> std::io::Result<()> {
env_logger::init();
let database_url = std::env::var("DATABASE_URL")
.unwrap_or_else(|_| "postgres://localhost/mydb".to_string());
let pool = PgPoolOptions::new()
.max_connections(10)
.connect(&database_url)
.await
.expect("Failed to create pool");
HttpServer::new(move || {
App::new()
.wrap(Logger::default())
.app_data(web::Data::new(pool.clone()))
.configure(routes::configure)
})
.bind("0.0.0.0:8080")?
.run()
.await
}
Route Configuration
rust
// src/routes/mod.rs — centralized route registration
use actix_web::web;
mod articles;
mod health;
pub fn configure(cfg: &mut web::ServiceConfig) {
cfg.service(
web::scope("/api")
.route("/health", web::get().to(health::check))
.service(
web::scope("/articles")
.route("", web::get().to(articles::list))
.route("", web::post().to(articles::create))
.route("/{id}", web::get().to(articles::get))
.route("/{id}", web::delete().to(articles::delete))
)
);
}
Models
rust
// src/models/article.rs — data models with serde
use serde::{Deserialize, Serialize};
use sqlx::FromRow;
#[derive(Debug, Serialize, FromRow)]
pub struct Article {
pub id: i32,
pub title: String,
pub body: String,
pub published: bool,
pub created_at: chrono::NaiveDateTime,
}
#[derive(Debug, Deserialize)]
pub struct CreateArticle {
pub title: String,
pub body: String,
}
#[derive(Debug, Deserialize)]
pub struct ListParams {
pub page: Option<u32>,
pub limit: Option<u32>,
}
Handlers with Extractors
rust
// src/routes/articles.rs — request handlers
use actix_web::{web, HttpResponse};
use sqlx::PgPool;
use crate::models::article::{Article, CreateArticle, ListParams};
use crate::errors::AppError;
pub async fn list(
pool: web::Data<PgPool>,
query: web::Query<ListParams>,
) -> Result<HttpResponse, AppError> {
let limit = query.limit.unwrap_or(20).min(100) as i64;
let offset = ((query.page.unwrap_or(1) - 1) * limit as u32) as i64;
let articles = sqlx::query_as::<_, Article>(
"SELECT * FROM articles WHERE published = true ORDER BY created_at DESC LIMIT $1 OFFSET $2"
)
.bind(limit)
.bind(offset)
.fetch_all(pool.get_ref())
.await?;
Ok(HttpResponse::Ok().json(articles))
}
pub async fn create(
pool: web::Data<PgPool>,
body: web::Json<CreateArticle>,
) -> Result<HttpResponse, AppError> {
let article = sqlx::query_as::<_, Article>(
"INSERT INTO articles (title, body) VALUES ($1, $2) RETURNING *"
)
.bind(&body.title)
.bind(&body.body)
.fetch_one(pool.get_ref())
.await?;
Ok(HttpResponse::Created().json(article))
}
pub async fn get(
pool: web::Data<PgPool>,
path: web::Path<i32>,
) -> Result<HttpResponse, AppError> {
let id = path.into_inner();
let article = sqlx::query_as::<_, Article>("SELECT * FROM articles WHERE id = $1")
.bind(id)
.fetch_optional(pool.get_ref())
.await?
.ok_or(AppError::NotFound)?;
Ok(HttpResponse::Ok().json(article))
}
Error Handling
rust
// src/errors.rs — custom error types
use actix_web::{HttpResponse, ResponseError};
use std::fmt;
#[derive(Debug)]
pub enum AppError {
NotFound,
Internal(String),
Database(sqlx::Error),
}
impl fmt::Display for AppError {
fn fmt(&self, f: &mut fmt::Formatter<'_>) -> fmt::Result {
match self {
AppError::NotFound => write!(f, "Not found"),
AppError::Internal(msg) => write!(f, "{}", msg),
AppError::Database(e) => write!(f, "Database error: {}", e),
}
}
}
impl ResponseError for AppError {
fn error_response(&self) -> HttpResponse {
match self {
AppError::NotFound => HttpResponse::NotFound().json(serde_json::json!({"error": "not found"})),
_ => HttpResponse::InternalServerError().json(serde_json::json!({"error": "internal error"})),
}
}
}
impl From<sqlx::Error> for AppError {
fn from(e: sqlx::Error) -> Self { AppError::Database(e) }
}
Middleware
rust
// src/middleware/auth.rs — simple auth middleware
use actix_web::{dev::ServiceRequest, Error, HttpMessage};
use actix_web::error::ErrorUnauthorized;
pub async fn validate_token(req: &ServiceRequest) -> Result<(), Error> {
let token = req.headers()
.get("Authorization")
.and_then(|v| v.to_str().ok())
.and_then(|v| v.strip_prefix("Bearer "));
match token {
Some(t) => {
let user_id = verify_jwt(t).map_err(|_| ErrorUnauthorized("invalid token"))?;
req.extensions_mut().insert(user_id);
Ok(())
}
None => Err(ErrorUnauthorized("missing token")),
}
}
Testing
rust
// tests/articles_test.rs — integration test
use actix_web::{test, App, web};
#[actix_web::test]
async fn test_list_articles() {
let pool = setup_test_db().await;
let app = test::init_service(
App::new()
.app_data(web::Data::new(pool))
.configure(routes::configure)
).await;
let req = test::TestRequest::get().uri("/api/articles").to_request();
let resp = test::call_service(&app, req).await;
assert_eq!(resp.status(), 200);
}
Key Patterns
- Use extractors (
web::Json,web::Path,web::Query,web::Data) for type-safe request parsing - Implement
ResponseErroron custom error types for automatic HTTP error responses - Use
web::Datafor shared application state (DB pool, config) — it's cheaply cloneable - Use
sqlxwith compile-time checked queries (sqlx::query!) for production code - Use
configurefunctions to modularize route registration - Use
#[actix_web::test]for async integration tests withtest::init_service