Documentation

Gin is a high-performance HTTP web framework written in Go. It provides a Martini-like API but with significantly better performance—up to 40 times faster—thanks to httprouter. Gin is designed for building REST APIs, web applications, and microservices where speed and developer productivity are essential.

Why choose Gin?

Gin combines the simplicity of Express.js-style routing with Go’s performance characteristics, making it ideal for:

• Building high-throughput REST APIs
• Developing microservices that need to handle many concurrent requests
• Creating web applications that require fast response times
• Prototyping web services quickly with minimal boilerplate

Gin’s key features:

• Zero allocation router - Extremely memory-efficient routing with no heap allocations
• High performance - Benchmarks show superior speed compared to other Go web frameworks
• Middleware support - Extensible middleware system for authentication, logging, CORS, etc.
• Crash-free - Built-in recovery middleware prevents panics from crashing your server
• JSON validation - Automatic request/response JSON binding and validation
• Route grouping - Organize related routes and apply common middleware
• Error management - Centralized error handling and logging
• Built-in rendering - Support for JSON, XML, HTML templates, and more
• Extensible - Large ecosystem of community middleware and plugins

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Go version: Gin requires Go version 1.23 or above
• Basic Go knowledge: Familiarity with Go syntax and package management is helpful

Installation

With Go’s module support, simply import Gin in your code and Go will automatically fetch it during build:

import "github.com/gin-gonic/gin"

Your First Gin Application

Here’s a complete example that demonstrates Gin’s simplicity:

package main

import (
  "net/http"

  "github.com/gin-gonic/gin"
)

func main() {
  // Create a Gin router with default middleware (logger and recovery)
  r := gin.Default()

  // Define a simple GET endpoint
  r.GET("/ping", func(c *gin.Context) {
    // Return JSON response
    c.JSON(http.StatusOK, gin.H{
      "message": "pong",
    })
  })

  // Start server on port 8080 (default)
  // Server will listen on 0.0.0.0:8080 (localhost:8080 on Windows)
  r.Run()
}

Running the application:

1. Save the code above as main.go

2. Run the application:

   go run main.go

3. Open your browser and visit http://localhost:8080/ping

4. You should see: {"message":"pong"}

What this example demonstrates:

• Creating a Gin router with default middleware
• Defining HTTP endpoints with simple handler functions
• Returning JSON responses
• Starting an HTTP server

Next Steps

After running your first Gin application, explore these resources to learn more:

📚 Learning Resources

• Gin Quick Start Guide - Comprehensive tutorial with API examples and build configurations
• Example Repository - Ready-to-run examples demonstrating various Gin use cases:
  • REST API development
  • Authentication & middleware
  • File uploads and downloads
  • WebSocket connections
  • Template rendering

Official Tutorials

• Go.dev Tutorial: Developing a RESTful API with Go and Gin

🔌 Middleware Ecosystem

Gin has a rich ecosystem of middleware for common web development needs. Explore community-contributed middleware:

• gin-contrib - Official middleware collection including:

  • Authentication (JWT, Basic Auth, Sessions)
  • CORS, Rate limiting, Compression
  • Logging, Metrics, Tracing
  • Static file serving, Template engines

• gin-gonic/contrib - Additional community middleware