Rusty React

Rusty React is a project template for building cross-platform applications that feature a web-based interface. It combines the power and safety of Rust for the backend with a React frontend.

The final output of this template is a standalone executable binary. This single binary acts as a web server, serving both the embedded React frontend and the backend API.

⚠️ This template is still a work in progress 🚧

---

Stack

Backend:

• Axum (API & File Server)
• SQLx (Async SQL toolkit)
• SQLite (via SQLx)
• rust-embed (Static asset embedding)

Frontend:

• React (with Tanstack Router)
• Tanstack Query
• shadcn/ui

---

What’s Awesome

• 🔗 Single Binary Deployment

  Bundle your entire application, frontend and backend, into one executable file. The React UI (inside the ui folder) is embedded directly into the Rust binary and served through ui_handler.

• ⚡ Fast and Memory Efficient

  Built with Rust for performance, safety, and zero-cost abstractions. Ideal for servers, internal tools, and resource-constrained environments.

• 🦀 Memory Safety Without GC

  Rust provides strong compile-time guarantees, eliminating entire classes of runtime bugs while keeping performance predictable.

• 🌐 Modern Web UI

  Use React with shadcn/ui to create a dynamic, responsive, and professional user interface.

• 🛠️ Cross-Platform Support

  Compile your app for Windows, macOS, and Linux from a single codebase.

• 🧳 Portable and Offline-Ready

  Because the UI is embedded and served locally from the binary, your application works fully offline.

• 📦 Simple Distribution

  Distribute your application as a single executable file. No Node.js runtime, no separate web server, no external static files.

• 🚀 Rapid Development

  Use React’s development server during UI development, then build and embed automatically during cargo build --release.

---

How It Works

1. The React app lives inside the ui/ folder.
2. During release builds, build.rs runs bun run build.
3. The compiled ui/dist files are embedded into the Rust binary using rust-embed.
4. The ui_handler serves static assets and provides SPA fallback.
5. /api/* routes are handled by Axum.

Result: one binary that serves both API and UI.

---

Development Workflow

Backend

cargo run

Frontend

cd ui
bun run dev

During development, the React dev server can proxy API requests to the Rust backend.

---

Production Build

cargo build --release
./target/release/rusty-react

This will:

• Build the React app
• Embed the UI into the binary
• Produce a single deployable executable

No external runtime dependencies required.

---

Why Rusty React?

Rusty React gives you the same deployment simplicity as Go-based single-binary templates, while leveraging Rust’s performance, safety guarantees, and ecosystem.

It is ideal for:

• Internal dashboards
• Desktop-style web apps
• Self-hosted tools
• Developer utilities
• Offline-capable applications

---