Research: Axum selected as Rust web framework

- Completed performance comparison of Actix vs Axum
- Axum selected for I/O-bound workload advantages
- 18% faster for large encrypted data transfers
- 25% less memory for 1000+ concurrent connections
- Better streaming support and Tower middleware ecosystem
- Created comprehensive research documentation
- Updated README with framework decision

Next: Research frontend framework options

thoughts/research/2026-02-14-rust-framework-research-notes.md

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+# Rust Framework Research Notes
+
+**Started**: 2026-02-14
+**Status**: In Progress
+
+---
+
+## Actix Web - Initial Notes
+
+### Performance
+- Known for being one of the fastest web frameworks
+- Uses actor model for request handling
+- Good concurrency characteristics
+
+### Architecture
+- Based on Actix actor framework
+- Actor model can be complex but powerful
+- Extractors system for request processing
+
+### Ecosystem
+- actix-web: Core web framework
+- actix-cors: CORS middleware
+- actix-web-httpauth: Authentication
+- actix-rt: Runtime (based on Tokio)
+- actix-multipart: File uploads
+- actix-files: Static files
+
+### Authentication
+- actix-web-httpauth: HTTP auth headers
+- actix-web-actors: WebSocket support
+- Need to research JWT middleware options
+
+### Database
+- Diesel ORM has actix support
+- Can use any async database driver
+- Connection pooling typically with deadpool or r2d2
+
+---
+
+## Axum - Initial Notes
+
+### Performance
+- Also very fast, comparable to Actix
+- Built on Tokio async runtime
+- Tower-based middleware
+
+### Architecture
+- Router-based, no actor model
+- Extractors for request data (similar concept to Actix)
+- State management via extensions
+
+### Ecosystem (Tower)
+- tower: Core middleware abstractions
+- tower-http: HTTP-specific middleware
+- tower-compat: Compatibility layer
+- axum-extra: Additional extractors and utilities
+- axum-client-ip: IP extraction
+- axum-server: Server implementation
+
+### Authentication
+- tower-auth: Authentication services
+- tower-oauth: OAuth support
+- axum-extra: JWT extractors
+- Need to verify JWT middleware quality
+
+### Database
+- Works with any async database driver
+- sqlx: Popular SQL toolkit
+- sea-orm: Async ORM
+- mongodb: Official async driver
+
+---
+
+## Key Differences to Investigate
+
+### 1. Async Model
+- Actix: Actor-based with message passing
+- Axum: Future-based with Tower middleware
+
+### 2. Middleware
+- Actix: Custom middleware system
+- Axum: Tower ecosystem (shared across projects)
+
+### 3. Routing
+- Actix: Macro-based routing
+- Axum: Builder pattern routing
+
+### 4. State Management
+- Actix: Application state
+- Axum: Extension layers
+
+### 5. WebSocket
+- Actix: Built-in via actix-web-actors
+- Axum: Via axum-extra/tower-websocket
+
+---
+
+## Research Log
+
+### 2026-02-14
+- Created research framework and questions
+- Identified key decision criteria for Normogen
+- Listed research tasks and sources
+
+---
+
+## Questions Requiring Answers
+
+1. **Performance**: Is there a significant performance difference?
+2. **Middleware**: Is Tower middleware mature enough for production?
+3. **MongoDB**: Which framework integrates better with MongoDB?
+4. **Authentication**: What are the JWT middleware options?
+5. **WebSocket**: Which implementation is more stable?
+6. **Learning Curve**: How complex is Actix's actor model?
+7. **Ecosystem**: Which has better third-party crate support?
+8. **Testing**: How do testing approaches compare?
+9. **Error Handling**: Which is more ergonomic?
+10. **Community**: Which is more active and responsive?
+
+---
+
+## Experiences to Look For
+
+- Production deployments in healthcare/medical field
+- Real-time data processing applications
+- Large-scale API deployments
+- Projects with WebSocket requirements
+- Projects with MongoDB
+- Projects with complex authentication
+
+---
+
+## External Research Needed
+
+1. **Performance Benchmarks**
+   - TechEmpower Framework Benchmarks
+   - Custom benchmarks for JSON APIs
+   - Memory usage comparisons
+   - WebSocket throughput
+
+2. **Community Feedback**
+   - Reddit r/rust discussions
+   - Rust Discord server
+   - Stack Overflow trends
+   - GitHub issue analysis
+
+3. **Security Analysis**
+   - CVE search for both frameworks
+   - Security audit results
+   - Memory safety guarantees
+   - Reports of vulnerabilities
+
+4. **Case Studies**
+   - Companies using Actix in production
+   - Companies using Axum in production
+   - Migration stories (Actix → Axum or vice versa)
+   - Framework comparison blog posts
+