---
title: What is Actix
menu: docs_intro
weight: 100
---

# Actix is Multiple Things

Actix is a few things.  The base of it is a powerful actor system for Rust on
top of which the `actix-web` system was originally built.  This is what you are most
likely going to work with.  What `actix-web` gives you is a fun and very fast web
development framework.

We call `actix-web` a small and pragmatic framework.  For all intents and purposes
it's a microframework with a few twists.  If you are already a Rust programmer
you will probably find yourself at home quickly, but even if you are coming from
another programming language you should find `actix-web` easy to pick up.

An application developed with `actix-web` will expose an HTTP server contained
within a native executable.  You can either put this behind another HTTP server like
nginx or serve it up as-is.  Even in the complete absence of another HTTP
server `actix-web` is powerful enough to provide HTTP 1 and HTTP 2 support as
well as SSL/TLS.  This makes it useful for building small services ready for
distribution.

Most importantly: `actix-web` runs on Rust {{< rust-version "actix-web" >}} or later
and it works with stable releases.