About

Iris, in plain facts

What the framework is, what version it is at, what it needs, and who is responsible for it. Everything on this page can be checked in the repository.

The facts

Current version14.0.0
Import pathgithub.com/kataras/iris/v14
Installgo get github.com/kataras/iris/v14@latest
Minimum Go version1.27
LicenseBSD-3-Clause, the same as the Go project itself
First released2016
Middleware in-tree31 packages
Path parameter types20 built in, plus custom macros
Runnable examples78
Documentation24 chapters, 437 pages, free
MaintainerGerasimos Maropoulos
Sponsors379 to date

What it is

Iris is a web framework for Go: a router, a request and response layer, a dependency container, an error pipeline and a set of middleware, assembled so that the ordinary shape of an HTTP service is already built when you start. It sits on the standard library's net/http, so an Iris application is an http.Handler and composes with the rest of the Go ecosystem, including httptest.

Version 14 is the largest release in the project's history. It was rebuilt around Go generics: a compile-enforced application builder, typed request helpers that validate for you, controllers resolved by the dependency container, and an error pipeline you configure once. HISTORY.md records everything new, and chapter 23 covers the upgrade path from v12.

Where the name comes from

Iris is the Greek goddess of the rainbow, and the messenger of the gods, which is a reasonable thing to name something that carries requests between machines. The mark is an aperture: three spectrum bands of decreasing sweep around a gold core, which is the rainbow, the literal meaning of the word iris, and the shape of iris.NewBuilder, all at once.

Who maintains it

Gerasimos Maropoulos has developed Iris in the open since 2016, together with hundreds of contributors. He also wrote the book, and runs Hellenic Development.

Security issues go to the security policy, not to the public issue tracker.

Elsewhere

Twenty-five chapters, about 85,000 words. Try BindJSON, graceful shutdown or error map.