Decision Workspace
netstack-smoltcp vs smoltcp vs ipnet
Side-by-side comparison of Rust crates
A netstack for the special purpose of turning packets from/to a TUN interface into TCP streams and UDP packets. It uses smoltcp-rs as the backend netstack.
A TCP/IP stack designed for bare-metal, real-time systems without a heap.
Provides types and useful methods for working with IPv4 and IPv6 network addresses, commonly called IP prefixes. The new `IpNet`, `Ipv4Net`, and `Ipv6Net` types build on the existing `IpAddr`, `Ipv4Addr`, and `Ipv6Addr` types already provided in Rust's standard library and align to their design to stay consistent. The module also provides useful traits that extend `Ipv4Addr` and `Ipv6Addr` with methods for `Add`, `Sub`, `BitAnd`, and `BitOr` operations. The module only uses stable feature so it is guaranteed to compile using the stable toolchain.
Core Metrics
| netstack-smoltcp | smoltcp | ipnet | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Health Score | 50 | 74 | 72 |
| Total Downloads | 21.3K | 5.5M | 345.0M |
| 30d Downloads | 8.0K | 309.7K | 26.1M |
| Dependents | 0 | 563 | 4.7K |
| Releases | 8 | 22 | 70 |
| Last Updated | 9d ago | 7d ago | 25d ago |
| Age | 1y 11m | 9y 3m | 8y 7m |
Health Breakdown
Technical Details
| netstack-smoltcp | smoltcp | ipnet | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Version | 0.2.1 | 0.13.0 | 2.12.0 |
| Stable (≥1.0) | ✗ No | ✗ No | ✓ Yes |
| License | MIT OR Apache-2.0 | 0BSD | MIT OR Apache-2.0 |
| Dependencies | 15 | 16 | 5 |
| Crate Size | 30KB | 361KB | 31KB |
| Features | 0 | 190 | 9 |
| Yanked % | 25.0% | 0.0% | 1.4% |
| Edition | 2021 | 2024 | 2018 |
| MSRV | 1.75.0 | 1.91 | — |
| Owners | 1 | 2 (team) | 1 |
Links
Quick Verdict
- •smoltcp leads with a health score of 74/100, but none of the options score above 80.
- •ipnet has the most downloads (345.0M), suggesting wider adoption.
- •ipnet is depended on by 4.7K crates — strongest ecosystem trust.
- •netstack-smoltcp, smoltcp are pre-1.0 — API may change.