GoFr vs Echo

{% answer %} Echo is a clean, ergonomic HTTP framework with a polished API and a good middleware curation — well suited for HTTP APIs where you want to compose your own production stack. GoFr has a wider scope: alongside HTTP routing it bundles OpenTelemetry tracing, Prometheus metrics, datasource clients, gRPC, GraphQL, WebSockets, Pub/Sub, migrations, cron, and a resilient service-to-service HTTP client. Two different scopes; pick the one that matches your project. {% /answer %}

What Echo is great at

Clean, ergonomic API — c.JSON, c.Bind, group routing, middleware composition feel polished.
Performance — competitive with Gin on net/http-based benchmarks.
Strong middleware ecosystem — official middleware for JWT, rate limit, CORS, logger, recover, etc.
Built-in HTTP/2 and graceful shutdown — production-ready HTTP defaults.

Where the scopes differ

Concern	Echo	GoFr
HTTP routing & middleware	Yes	Yes
OpenTelemetry tracing	Via middleware library	Built in
Prometheus metrics	Via middleware library	Built in
Structured logging with request context	Via library	Built in
Database clients (MySQL, Mongo, Redis, etc.)	Bring your own	15+ built in, auto-instrumented
gRPC server	Run separately	Built in
GraphQL	Bring your own (gqlgen)	Built in
Pub/Sub	Bring your own (Kafka, NATS)	Built in
Cron jobs	Bring your own	Built in
Database migrations	Bring your own (golang-migrate)	Built in
Service-to-service HTTP w/ circuit breaker	Bring your own	Built in
RBAC	Build it	Config-driven
Health endpoints	Define manually	Auto-exposed at `/.well-known/health`

Hello world

Echo:

package main

import "github.com/labstack/echo/v4"

func main() {
    e := echo.New()
    e.GET("/hello", func(c echo.Context) error {
        return c.JSON(200, map[string]string{"message": "Hello, world"})
    })
    e.Start(":8000")
}

GoFr:

package main

import "gofr.dev/pkg/gofr"

func main() {
    app := gofr.New()
    app.GET("/hello", func(c *gofr.Context) (any, error) {
        return "Hello, world", nil
    })
    app.Run()
}

When GoFr might be a good fit

You'd prefer the production layer bundled rather than composed.
gRPC, GraphQL, Pub/Sub, WebSockets, or cron alongside HTTP are useful for your work.
You'd like consistent observability and configuration across multiple services.

{% faq %}

{% faq-item question="Does GoFr have an equivalent of Echo's grouped routes?" %} GoFr does not have a one-line Group equivalent. Replicate it by composing handlers with shared helpers and registering middleware globally with app.UseMiddleware. {% /faq-item %}

{% faq-item question="Can I migrate Echo handlers to GoFr?" %} The mental model translates well: echo.Context.JSON(200, x) becomes return x, nil. Bind, path params, and query params have direct equivalents on gofr.Context. {% /faq-item %}

{% /faq %}