# Ktor vs NestJS

**Leader by vioscaleAI score:** NestJS

| Attribute | Ktor | NestJS |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 57.8 (68% (medium)) | 74.6 (76% (high)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 98 | 100 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 484 | 78,848 |
| adoption.github_stars | 14,542 | 76,788 |
| content.faq | `[{"answer":"Ktor is an open-source framework for creating asynchronous server and client applications, from microservices to HTTP clients. Built on Kotlin and coroutines, it emphasizes simplicity, lightweight design, and extensibility. It is indexed under Web Frameworks.","source":"https://ktor.io/","question":"What is Ktor?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Ktor is open source, so it can be self-hosted and used at no licence cost. It is released under the Apache-2.0 licence. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://ktor.io/","question":"Is Ktor free to use?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Ktor is published under the Apache-2.0 licence, a permissive licence that generally allows commercial use and modification. Licence terms can change between releases, so verify against the repository for the version you intend to use.","source":"https://github.com/ktorio/ktor","question":"Is Ktor open source?","confidence":0.95}]` | `[{"answer":"A progressive Node.js framework built with TypeScript that emphasizes structured architecture, dependency injection, and microservice support for building server-side applications. It is indexed under Web Frameworks.","source":"https://nestjs.com","question":"What is NestJS?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"NestJS offers a free tier, so you can start without paying. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://nestjs.com","question":"Is NestJS free?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"NestJS supports a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://nestjs.com","question":"What platforms does NestJS support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. NestJS can be deployed cloud / SaaS and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://nestjs.com","question":"Can NestJS be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 9 integrations for NestJS, including Express, Fastify, GraphQL, TypeORM, Swagger/OpenAPI, Bull, WebSockets and Microservices, plus 1 more. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://nestjs.com","question":"What does NestJS integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. NestJS is published under the MIT licence, a permissive licence that generally allows commercial use and modification. Licence terms can change between releases, so verify against the repository for the version you intend to use.","source":"https://github.com/nestjs/nest","question":"Is NestJS open source?","confidence":0.95}]` |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | A Kotlin framework that uses asynchronous I/O and coroutines to build server-side, client-side, and microservice applications. | A progressive Node.js framework built with TypeScript that emphasizes structured architecture, dependency injection, and microservice support for building server-side applications. |
| features.capabilities | `{"language":"Kotlin","api_routes":true,"hot_reload":true,"typescript_first":false}` | `{"language":"TypeScript/JavaScript","api_first":true,"api_routes":true,"async_model":"event-loop-async","cli_scaffolding":true,"openapi_autogen":true,"language_runtime":"JS/TS","typescript_first":true,"websocket_support":true,"architecture_style":"structured-di","dependency_injection":true}` |
| integrations.count | - | 9 |
| integrations.list | - | `[{"name":"Express"},{"name":"Fastify"},{"name":"GraphQL"},{"name":"TypeORM"},{"name":"Swagger/OpenAPI"},{"name":"Bull"},{"name":"WebSockets"},{"name":"Microservices"},{"name":"Angular Universal"}]` |
| language.primary | Kotlin | TypeScript |
| license.spdx | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| market.availability | - | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"web":true}` | `{"cli":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"open_source","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://ktor.io/","retrievedAt":"2026-08-13T23:07:06.179Z"}` | `{"type":"hybrid","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://nestjs.com","retrievedAt":"2026-08-21T12:46:31.197Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | open_source | commercial |
| pricing.price_level | free | low |
| pricing.transparent | - | no |
| release.cadence_days | 27 | 3 |
| release.history | `[{"url":"https://github.com/ktorio/ktor/releases/tag/3.6.0","date":"2026-09-18T09:58:55Z","type":"stable","version":"3.6.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/ktorio/ktor/releases/tag/3.5.2","date":"2026-08-04T12:08:07Z","type":"stable","version":"3.5.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/ktorio/ktor/releases/tag/3.5.1","date":"2026-06-29T08:05:31Z","type":"stable","version":"3.5.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/ktorio/ktor/releases/tag/3.5.0","date":"2026-05-18T06:57:48Z","type":"stable","version":"3.5.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/ktorio/ktor/releases/tag/3.4.3","date":"2026-04-23T11:20:32Z","type":"stable","version":"3.4.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/ktorio/ktor/releases/tag/3.4.2","date":"2026-03-30T13:37:19Z","type":"stable","version":"3.4.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/ktorio/ktor/releases/tag/3.4.1","date":"2026-03-04T14:20:52Z","type":"stable","version":"3.4.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/ktorio/ktor/releases/tag/3.4.0","date":"2026-01-23T08:55:39Z","type":"stable","version":"3.4.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/ktorio/ktor/releases/tag/3.3.3","date":"2025-11-27T12:13:53Z","type":"stable","version":"3.3.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/ktorio/ktor/releases/tag/3.3.2","date":"2025-11-05T14:08:06Z","type":"stable","version":"3.3.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/ktorio/ktor/releases/tag/3.3.1","date":"2025-10-10T06:19:56Z","type":"stable","version":"3.3.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/ktorio/ktor/releases/tag/3.3.0","date":"2025-09-12T11:59:39Z","type":"stable","version":"3.3.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/ktorio/ktor/releases/tag/3.2.3","date":"2025-07-29T14:18:09Z","type":"stable","version":"3.2.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/ktorio/ktor/releases/tag/3.2.2","date":"2025-07-14T11:45:21Z","type":"stable","version":"3.2.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/ktorio/ktor/releases/tag/3.2.1","date":"2025-07-04T08:57:57Z","type":"stable","version":"3.2.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/ktorio/ktor/releases/tag/3.2.0","date":"2025-06-13T12:19:28Z","type":"stable","version":"3.2.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/ktorio/ktor/releases/tag/3.1.3","date":"2025-05-06T11:52:28Z","type":"stable","version":"3.1.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/ktorio/ktor/releases/tag/3.1.2","date":"2025-03-28T09:27:52Z","type":"stable","version":"3.1.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/ktorio/ktor/releases/tag/3.1.1","date":"2025-02-25T11:49:42Z","type":"stable","version":"3.1.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/ktorio/ktor/releases/tag/3.1.0","date":"2025-02-12T11:44:49Z","type":"stable","version":"3.1.0"}]` | `[{"url":"https://github.com/nestjs/nest/releases/tag/v12.1.1","date":"2026-09-28T09:06:52Z","type":"stable","version":"v12.1.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/nestjs/nest/releases/tag/v12.1.0","date":"2026-09-23T08:00:20Z","type":"stable","version":"v12.1.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/nestjs/nest/releases/tag/v11.2.6","date":"2026-09-23T09:09:35Z","type":"stable","version":"v11.2.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/nestjs/nest/releases/tag/v12.0.4","date":"2026-09-21T08:03:41Z","type":"stable","version":"v12.0.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/nestjs/nest/releases/tag/v12.0.3","date":"2026-09-15T07:57:13Z","type":"stable","version":"v12.0.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/nestjs/nest/releases/tag/v11.2.5","date":"2026-09-15T07:11:48Z","type":"stable","version":"v11.2.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/nestjs/nest/releases/tag/v12.0.2","date":"2026-09-14T13:53:20Z","type":"stable","version":"v12.0.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/nestjs/nest/releases/tag/v11.2.4","date":"2026-09-14T18:15:40Z","type":"stable","version":"v11.2.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/nestjs/nest/releases/tag/v12.0.0","date":"2026-08-27T12:23:49Z","type":"stable","version":"v12.0.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/nestjs/nest/releases/tag/v11.2.3","date":"2026-08-25T10:59:41Z","type":"stable","version":"v11.2.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/nestjs/nest/releases/tag/v11.2.2","date":"2026-08-25T07:59:18Z","type":"stable","version":"v11.2.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/nestjs/nest/releases/tag/v11.2.1","date":"2026-08-14T17:53:21Z","type":"stable","version":"v11.2.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/nestjs/nest/releases/tag/v11.2.0","date":"2026-08-14T12:13:03Z","type":"stable","version":"v11.2.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/nestjs/nest/releases/tag/v11.1.29","date":"2026-08-10T09:40:32Z","type":"stable","version":"v11.1.29"},{"url":"https://github.com/nestjs/nest/releases/tag/v11.1.28","date":"2026-07-08T08:33:50Z","type":"stable","version":"v11.1.28"},{"url":"https://github.com/nestjs/nest/releases/tag/v11.1.27","date":"2026-06-15T09:17:02Z","type":"stable","version":"v11.1.27"},{"url":"https://github.com/nestjs/nest/releases/tag/v11.1.26","date":"2026-06-08T12:37:55Z","type":"stable","version":"v11.1.26"},{"url":"https://github.com/nestjs/nest/releases/tag/v11.1.25","date":"2026-06-08T07:39:37Z","type":"stable","version":"v11.1.25"},{"url":"https://github.com/nestjs/nest/releases/tag/v11.1.24","date":"2026-05-25T08:41:52Z","type":"stable","version":"v11.1.24"},{"url":"https://github.com/nestjs/nest/releases/tag/v11.1.23","date":"2026-05-21T18:18:12Z","type":"stable","version":"v11.1.23"}]` |
| security.fedramp | - | yes |
| security.scorecard | 4.5 | 7.6 |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":1,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=maven&package_name=io.ktor%3Aktor-client-core-jvm&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":"MODERATE"}` | `{"count":1,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=npm&package_name=%40nestjs%2Fcommon&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":"MODERATE"}` |

## Capabilities (Web Frameworks)

| Capability | Ktor | NestJS |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Core** |  |  |
| Rendering model | - | - |
| File-based routing | - | - |
| Language | Kotlin | TypeScript/JavaScript |
| **Rendering** |  |  |
| Server components | - | - |
| Streaming SSR | - | - |
| **Fullstack** |  |  |
| Built-in API / backend routes | ✓ | ✓ |
| **DX** |  |  |
| First-class TypeScript | ✗ | ✓ |
| Fast refresh / HMR | ✓ | - |
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Edge runtime support | - | - |

*Source: vioscaleAI. Generated 2026-10-16T18:31:14.076Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*