Gin Web Framework

📰 Gin 1.12.0 is now available!

We’re excited to announce the release of Gin 1.12.0! This release brings new features, performance improvements, and important bug fixes. Check out the release announcement on our official blog for the full details.

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

Getting Started

Prerequisites

Go version: Gin requires Go version 1.25 or above
Basic Go knowledge: Familiarity with Go syntax and package management is helpful

Installation

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"

Your First Gin Application

Here’s a complete example that demonstrates Gin’s simplicity:

package main

import (
  "log"
  "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)
  if err := r.Run(); err != nil {
    log.Fatalf("failed to run server: %v", err)
  }
}

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

Next Steps

After running your first Gin application, explore these resources to learn more:

📚 Learning Resources

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

📖 Documentation

API Reference

Go.dev API Documentation - Complete API reference with examples

User Guides

The comprehensive documentation is available on gin-gonic.com in multiple languages:

Official Tutorials

Go.dev Tutorial: Developing a RESTful API with Go and Gin

⚡ Performance Benchmarks

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

🔌 Middleware Ecosystem

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

🏢 Production Usage

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

🤝 Contributing

Gin is the work of hundreds of contributors from around the world. We welcome and appreciate your contributions!

How to Contribute

🐛 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

Getting Started with Contributing

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!