Actix Web is part of an Ecosystem of Crates
Long ago, Actix Web was built on top of the actix
actor framework. Now, Actix Web is largely unrelated to the actor framework and is built using a different system. Though actix
is still maintained, its usefulness as a general tool is diminishing as the features and async/await ecosystem matures. At this time, the use of actix
is only required for WebSocket endpoints.
We call Actix Web a powerful and pragmatic framework. For all intents and purposes, it's a micro-framework 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 TLS (HTTPS). This makes it useful for building small services ready for production.
Most importantly: Actix Web runs on Rust 1.72 or later and it works with stable releases.