webapp.rs

A web application completely written in Rust

Target of this project is to write a complete web application including backend and frontend within Rust.

graph LR
    A[Leptos / WASM<br>in browser] -->|SSR / RPC| B[Axum<br>HTTP Server]
    B --> C[SQLx]
    C --> D[(PostgreSQL)]

Blog Posts

1. A Web Application completely in Rust.
2. Lessons learned on writing web applications completely in Rust.

Architecture

Component	Technology
Frontend	Leptos (WebAssembly with SSR + hydration)
Backend	Axum (via leptos_axum)
Database	PostgreSQL (via SQLx)
Auth	JWT tokens (jsonwebtoken) + Argon2 password hashing

The application uses Leptos server functions to communicate between frontend and backend, eliminating the need for a separate REST API layer. Both server and client are compiled from a single Rust crate.

Features

• User registration with Argon2 password hashing
• Login with username and password
• JWT-based session management with automatic renewal
• PostgreSQL session and user storage
• CSRF protection via origin validation
• Health check endpoint (/healthz) for container orchestration
• Server-side rendering with client-side hydration
• Single binary deployment

Prerequisites

• Rust (stable)
• cargo-leptos: cargo install cargo-leptos
• PostgreSQL
• wasm32-unknown-unknown target: rustup target add wasm32-unknown-unknown
• wasm-bindgen-cli: cargo install wasm-bindgen-cli

Getting Started

Start a PostgreSQL instance:

docker run -d --name postgres \
    -e POSTGRES_USER=webapp \
    -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=webapp \
    -e POSTGRES_DB=webapp \
    -p 5432:5432 \
    postgres:17

Run the application:

export DATABASE_URL=postgres://webapp:webapp@localhost/webapp
cargo leptos watch

The application will be available at http://127.0.0.1:3000.

Register a new account using the "Register" link on the login page, then log in with your credentials.

Configuration

Environment Variable	Description	Default
DATABASE_URL	PostgreSQL connection string	postgres://localhost/webapp
JWT_SECRET	Secret key for JWT token signing	change-me-in-production
LEPTOS_SITE_ADDR	Server listen address	127.0.0.1:3000

Container

Build and run as a container:

docker build -t webapp .
docker run -p 3000:3000 \
    -e DATABASE_URL=postgres://webapp:[email protected]/webapp \
    webapp

Development

cargo fmt --check                              # Check formatting
cargo clippy --features ssr -- -D warnings     # Lint server code
cargo test --features ssr                      # Run tests
cargo leptos build                             # Build for development
cargo leptos build --release                   # Build for production

Contributing

You want to contribute to this project? Wow, thanks! So please just fork it and send me a pull request.

License

Apache 2.0