Decision Workspace
hot-restart vs cargo-rerun vs cargo-watch
Side-by-side comparison of Rust crates
59
hot-restart
experimentalv0.6.15
A Rust library for hot restarting applications without downtime. Provides seamless process replacement for servers and long-running services, enabling zero-downtime updates and configuration reloads.
43
cargo-rerun
experimentalv2.1.0
A tool that runs cargo run and automatically restarts when watched files change
63
cargo-watch
growingv8.5.3
Watches over your Cargo project’s source
Core Metrics
| hot-restart | cargo-rerun | cargo-watch | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Health Score | 59 | 43 | 63 |
| Total Downloads | 11.4K | 59 | 1.7M |
| 30d Downloads | 708 | 9 | 47.7K |
| Dependents | 244 | 0 | 129 |
| Releases | 34 | 3 | 68 |
| Last Updated | 24d ago | 64d ago | 541d ago |
| Age | 10m | 2m | 11y 2m |
Health Breakdown
hot-restart
Maintenance
17
Quality
14
Community
13
Popularity
5
Documentation
10
cargo-rerun
Maintenance
10
Quality
15
Community
6
Popularity
2
Documentation
10
cargo-watch
Maintenance
8
Quality
16
Community
17
Popularity
7
Documentation
15
Technical Details
| hot-restart | cargo-rerun | cargo-watch | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Version | 0.6.15 | 2.1.0 | 8.5.3 |
| Stable (≥1.0) | ✗ No | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| License | MIT | MIT OR Apache-2.0 | CC0-1.0 |
| Dependencies | 1 | 12 | 13 |
| Crate Size | 6KB | 25KB | 173KB |
| Features | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Yanked % | 0.0% | 0.0% | 2.9% |
| Edition | 2024 | 2021 | 2021 |
| MSRV | — | — | 1.75.0 |
| Owners | 1 | 1 | 2 (team) |
Links
Quick Verdict
- •cargo-watch leads with a health score of 63/100, but none of the options score above 80.
- •hot-restart is depended on by 244 crates — strongest ecosystem trust.
- •⚠ cargo-watch has not been updated in over a year.
- •hot-restart is pre-1.0 — API may change.