explaingit

kataras/iris

★ 25,588GoAudience · developerComplexity · 3/5MaintainedLicenseSetup · easy

TLDR

A fast, feature-rich web framework for Go that handles routing, sessions, authentication, and templating out of the box.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((Iris))
    What it does
      HTTP routing
      WebSocket support
      REST APIs
      Server templating
    Key features
      Built-in middleware
      Session management
      Authentication
      Rate limiting
    Tech stack
      HTTP/2
      gRPC
      MVC pattern
    Use cases
      Web applications
      Real-time chat
      REST APIs
      Live dashboards

Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Build a REST API with automatic routing, request parsing, and built-in authentication middleware.

USE CASE 2

Create a real-time chat application using WebSocket support for two-way communication.

USE CASE 3

Develop a web dashboard with server-side templating and session management included.

USE CASE 4

Set up a microservice that communicates with other services using gRPC.

Tech stack

GoHTTP/2WebSocketsgRPCHandlebarsPug

Getting it running

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min
Iris is open source and permissive, allowing free use for any purpose including commercial applications.

In plain English

Iris is a web framework for Go (Golang) that prioritizes speed and a rich set of built-in features. A web framework is a toolkit that handles the repetitive work of building a web server or API, routing incoming requests to the right code, parsing request data, managing sessions, handling authentication, and more, so developers can focus on their application's actual logic rather than reinventing these building blocks. Iris claims to be among the fastest HTTP web frameworks available for Go. It supports HTTP/2 (the modern version of the web protocol that allows faster, multiplexed connections), WebSockets (for real-time two-way communication like chat or live updates), gRPC (a high-performance communication protocol between services), and MVC architecture (Model-View-Controller, a pattern that organizes code into separate layers for data, display, and logic). Out of the box it includes middleware for things like authentication, rate limiting, CORS (rules for which websites can access your API), caching, and more. It also has built-in support for server-side templating using engines like HTML, Handlebars, Pug, and Django-style templates. You would use Iris when building a Go-based web application or REST API and want a high-performance, batteries-included framework without assembling components manually. It is particularly appealing for developers who want a large standard feature set without adding many extra packages.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Show me how to set up a basic REST API endpoint in Iris that handles GET and POST requests.
Prompt 2
How do I add authentication middleware to protect routes in an Iris web application?
Prompt 3
Create a WebSocket handler in Iris that broadcasts messages to all connected clients.
Prompt 4
How do I configure Iris to serve HTML templates with Handlebars and handle form submissions?
Prompt 5
Show me how to implement rate limiting and CORS in an Iris API.
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Generated 2026-05-18 · Model: sonnet-4-6 · Verify against the repo before relying on details.