Pure Python web framework using free-threaded Python

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Barq is an experimental HTTP framework built entirely in pure Python, designed for free-threaded Python 3.13 (PEP 703). No async/await, no C extensions - just threads with true parallelism. The question I wanted to answer: now that Python has a no-GIL mode, can a simple threaded server beat async frameworks? Results against FastAPI (100 concurrent clients): - JSON: 8,400 req/s vs 4,500 req/s (+87%) - CPU-bound: 1,425 req/s vs 266 req/s (+435%) The CPU-bound result is the interesting one. Async can't parallelize CPU work - it's fundamentally single-threaded. With free-threaded Python, adding more threads actually scales: - 4 threads: 608 req/s - 8 threads: 1,172 req/s (1.9x) - 16 threads: 1,297 req/s (2.1x) The framework is ~500 lines across 5 files. Key implementation choices: - ThreadPoolExecutor for workers - HTTP/1.1 keep-alive connections - Radix tree router for O(1) matching - Pydantic for validation - Optional orjson for faster serialization This is experimental and not production-ready, but it's an interesting datapoint for what's possible when Python drops the GIL. Code: https://github.com/grandimam/barq

Visit product View on Hacker NewsFeb 28, 2026

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