---
title: "Gin is a very bad software library"
url: https://daily.dev/posts/gin-is-a-very-bad-software-library-8mxglpldh
source_url: https://eblog.fly.dev/ginbad.html
type: article
source: "Lobsters"
published: 2025-12-10T23:25:45.713Z
updated: 2025-12-10T23:26:13.210Z
tags: ["webdev", "architecture", "golang"]
reading_time: 19
upvotes: 60
comments: 8
language: en
---

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# Gin is a very bad software library

**[Lobsters](https://daily.dev/sources/lobsters)** · 19 min read · 60 upvotes · 8 comments

## Summary

Gin is criticized as an overly complex Go web framework with massive bloat compared to the standard library. The framework requires over 1 million lines of code and 55MB of dependencies to accomplish what net/http does in 25,000 lines. Its API design violates Unix philosophy with enormous interfaces (gin.Context has 100+ methods), creates unnecessary abstraction layers that obscure control flow, and makes migration away nearly impossible once adopted. The article demonstrates how Gin's complexity provides no real benefit over using Go's standard library directly, while significantly increasing binary size, compilation time, and cognitive overhead.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://eblog.fly.dev/ginbad.html>

## Community discussion

Top comments from developers on daily.dev.

**@akkitto** · 3 upvotes

> Generally speaking, a strong standard library significantly runs an already good language. Especially, when batteries are included, you usually don't need to use third party libraries, at all. This has so many advantages. First of all, no external dependency maintenance. You are using the standard library. Second of all, the standard library is usually well maintend by the language's experts and core developers. Meanwhile, an external library can have the same quality, although more likely have less, especially with smaller teams, who commit less effort or don't have this amount of...

**@andradei** · 2 upvotes

> I agree with Gin being overly complex... and poorly documented. Go is a relatively easy language to read so going through the source shouldn't be too bad. But Gin's code is really full in detours for abstractions that aren't immediately obvious nor have good comments for newcomers.

**@xidib78169** · 2 upvotes

> Interesting post. It is true that gin has established itself as go's web server, but this is not limited to go, but any program that gains fame in any language will have more features than necessary added to it.

**@olian04** · 2 upvotes

> How does Gin compare to Fiber and Echo?

**@brightblade42** · 1 upvotes

> 1 million lines of code! holy moly

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---

Tags: [#webdev](https://daily.dev/tags/webdev), [#architecture](https://daily.dev/tags/architecture), [#golang](https://daily.dev/tags/golang)

[View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/gin-is-a-very-bad-software-library-8mxglpldh)