I Built a Laravel-like Web Framework for Rust

I recently built a Rust web framework called Willow Forge:

👉 https://github.com/lechatthecat/willow-forge

It’s a Laravel-like layer on top of axum, designed to give you structure, productivity, and a batteries-included developer experience — something I personally missed when building apps in Rust.

What Willow Forge Is

Willow Forge is a productivity-focused framework for Rust web development, inspired by Laravel and Rails.

It provides:

• MVC-style project structure
• Controllers, middleware
• Request validation
• Server-side HTML rendering + JSON APIs
• Routing separation (web.rs / api.rs)
• Migrations

Under the hood, it uses axum, but instead of starting from a blank slate every time, you get a structured foundation.

Why I Built It

Every time I started a new Rust web project with axum, I found myself rebuilding the same things:

• Folder structure
• Routing organization
• Validation layer
• Middleware grouping
• Basic app architecture

Rust gives you power — but not much guidance.

In contrast, frameworks like Laravel or Rails give you:

• A clear place for everything
• Consistent patterns
• Fast onboarding
• Less decision fatigue

I wanted that experience — but in Rust.

Who This Is For

Willow Forge is probably a good fit if:

• You like Laravel style structure
• You don’t want to reinvent app architecture every time
• You’re building:
  • CRUD apps
  • internal tools
  • dashboards
  • SSR + API combined apps