onnxruntime-rs

Library Listed Dormant

Wrapper around Microsoft's ONNX Runtime

Jobs: Run and serve models
Category: Inference runtimes

Checked 9 Nov 2026 · Sources

Downloads: 802
Dependents: 3
Stars: 332
Forks: 103
Contributors: 9
Commits: 447
Latest release: 0.0.14 · 5 years ago

About

From the project README · 6 Nov 2026

This is an attempt at a Rust wrapper for Microsoft's ONNX Runtime (version 1.8).

This project consist on two crates:

onnxruntime-sys: Low-level binding to the C API;
onnxruntime: High-level and safe API.

Changelog

The build.rs script supports downloading pre-built versions of the Microsoft ONNX Runtime, which provides the following targets:

CPU:

Linux x86_64
macOS x86_64
macOS aarch64 (no pre-built binaries, no CI testing, see #74)
Windows i686
Windows x86_64

GPU:

Linux x86_64
Windows x86_64

WARNING:

This is an experiment and work in progress; it is not complete/working/safe. Help welcome!
Basic inference works, see onnxruntime/examples/sample.rs or onnxruntime/tests/integration_tests.rs
ONNX Runtime has many options to control the inference process but those options are not yet exposed.
This was developed and tested on macOS Catalina. Other platforms should work but have not been tested.

Setup

Three different strategy to obtain the ONNX Runtime are supported by the build.rs script:

Download a pre-built binary from upstream;
Point to a local version already installed;
Compile from source (not yet implemented).

To select which strategy to use, set the ORT_STRATEGY environment variable to:

Read the full README

download: This is the default if ORT_STRATEGY is not set;
system: To use a locally installed version (use ORT_LIB_LOCATION environment variable to point to the install path)
compile: To compile the library

The download strategy supports downloading a version of ONNX that supports CUDA. To use this, set the environment variable ORT_USE_CUDA=1 (only supports Linux or Windows).

Until the build script allow compilation of the runtime, see the compilation notes for some details on the process.

Note on 'ORT_STRATEGY=system'

When using ORT_STRATEGY=system, executing a built crate binary (for example the tests) might fail, at least on macOS, if the library is not installed in a system path. An error similar to the following happens:

dyld: Library not loaded: @rpath/libonnxruntime.1.7.1.dylib
  Referenced from: onnxruntime-rs.git/target/debug/deps/onnxruntime_sys-22eb0e3e89a0278c
  Reason: image not found

To fix, one can either:

Set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable to point to the path where the library can be found.

Adapt the .cargo/config file to contain a linker flag to provide the full path:

[target.aarch64-apple-darwin]
rustflags = ["-C", "link-args=-Wl,-rpath,/full/path/to/onnxruntime/lib"]

See rust-lang/cargo #5077 for more information.

Example

The C++ example that uses the C API (C_Api_Sample.cpp) was ported to both the low level crate (onnxruntime-sys) and the high level on (onnxruntime).

onnxruntime-sys

To run this example (onnxruntime-sys/examples/c_api_sample.rs):

# Download the model (SqueezeNet 1.0, ONNX version: 1.3, Opset version: 8)
❯ curl -LO "https://github.com/onnx/models/raw/master/vision/classification/squeezenet/model/squeezenet1.0-8.onnx"
❯ cargo run --example c_api_sample
[...]
    Finished dev [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 1.88s
     Running `target/debug/examples/c_api_sample`
Using Onnxruntime C API
2020-08-09 09:37:41.554922 [I:onnxruntime:, inference_session.cc:174 ConstructorCommon] Creating and using per session threadpools since use_per_session_threads_ is true
2020-08-09 09:37:41.556650 [I:onnxruntime:, inference_session.cc:830 Initialize] Initializing session.
2020-08-09 09:37:41.556665 [I:onnxruntime:, inference_session.cc:848 Initialize] Adding default CPU execution provider.
2020-08-09 09:37:41.556678 [I:onnxruntime:test, bfc_arena.cc:15 BFCArena] Creating BFCArena for Cpu
2020-08-09 09:37:41.556687 [V:onnxruntime:test, bfc_arena.cc:32 BFCArena] Creating 21 bins of max chunk size 256 to 268435456
2020-08-09 09:37:41.558313 [I:onnxruntime:, reshape_fusion.cc:37 ApplyImpl] Total fused reshape node count: 0
2020-08-09 09:37:41.559327 [I:onnxruntime:, reshape_fusion.cc:37 ApplyImpl] Total fused reshape node count: 0
2020-08-09 09:37:41.559476 [I:onnxruntime:, reshape_fusion.cc:37 ApplyImpl] Total fused reshape node count: 0
2020-08-09 09:37:41.559607 [V:onnxruntime:, inference_session.cc:671 TransformGraph] Node placements
2020-08-09 09:37:41.559615 [V:onnxruntime:, inference_session.cc:673 TransformGraph] All nodes have been placed on [CPUExecutionProvider].
2020-08-09 09:37:41.559639 [I:onnxruntime:, session_state.cc:25 SetGraph] SaveMLValueNameIndexMapping
2020-08-09 09:37:41.559787 [I:onnxruntime:, session_state.cc:70 SetGraph] Done saving OrtValue mappings.
2020-08-09 09:37:41.560252 [I:onnxruntime:, session_state_initializer.cc:178 SaveInitializedTensors] Saving initialized tensors.
2020-08-09 09:37:41.563467 [I:onnxruntime:, session_state_initializer.cc:223 SaveInitializedTensors] Done saving initialized tensors
2020-08-09 09:37:41.563979 [I:onnxruntime:, inference_session.cc:919 Initialize] Session successfully initialized.
Number of inputs = 1
Input 0 : name=data_0
Input 0 : type=1
Input 0 : num_dims=4
Input 0 : dim 0=1
Input 0 : dim 1=3
Input 0 : dim 2=224
Input 0 : dim 3=224
2020-08-09 09:37:41.573127 [I:onnxruntime:, sequential_executor.cc:145 Execute] Begin execution
2020-08-09 09:37:41.573183 [I:onnxruntime:test, bfc_arena.cc:259 AllocateRawInternal] Extending BFCArena for Cpu. bin_num:13 rounded_bytes:3154176
2020-08-09 09:37:41.573197 [I:onnxruntime:test, bfc_arena.cc:143 Extend] Extended allocation by 4194304 bytes.
2020-08-09 09:37:41.573203 [I:onnxruntime:test, bfc_arena.cc:147 Extend] Total allocated bytes: 9137152
2020-08-09 09:37:41.573212 [I:onnxruntime:test, bfc_arena.cc:150 Extend] Allocated memory at 0x7fb7d6cb7000 to 0x7fb7d70b7000
2020-08-09 09:37:41.573248 [I:onnxruntime:test, bfc_arena.cc:259 AllocateRawInternal] Extending BFCArena for Cpu. bin_num:8 rounded_bytes:65536
2020-08-09 09:37:41.573256 [I:onnxruntime:test, bfc_arena.cc:143 Extend] Extended allocation by 4194304 bytes.
2020-08-09 09:37:41.573262 [I:onnxruntime:test, bfc_arena.cc:147 Extend] Total allocated bytes: 13331456
2020-08-09 09:37:41.573268 [I:onnxruntime:test, bfc_arena.cc:150 Extend] Allocated memory at 0x7fb7d70b7000 to 0x7fb7d74b7000
Score for class [0] =  0.000045440644
Score for class [1] =  0.0038458651
Score for class [2] =  0.00012494653
Score for class [3] =  0.0011804523
Score for class [4] =  0.0013169361
Done!

onnxruntime

To run this example (onnxruntime/examples/sample.rs):

# Download the model (SqueezeNet 1.0, ONNX version: 1.3, Opset version: 8)
❯ curl -LO "https://github.com/onnx/models/raw/master/vision/classification/squeezenet/model/squeezenet1.0-8.onnx"
❯ cargo run --example sample
[...]
    Finished dev [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 13.62s
     Running `target/debug/examples/sample`
Uninitialized environment found, initializing it with name "test".
2020-08-09 09:34:37.395577 [I:onnxruntime:, inference_session.cc:174 ConstructorCommon] Creating and using per session threadpools since use_per_session_threads_ is true
2020-08-09 09:34:37.399253 [I:onnxruntime:, inference_session.cc:830 Initialize] Initializing session.
2020-08-09 09:34:37.399284 [I:onnxruntime:, inference_session.cc:848 Initialize] Adding default CPU execution provider.
2020-08-09 09:34:37.399313 [I:onnxruntime:test, bfc_arena.cc:15 BFCArena] Creating BFCArena for Cpu
2020-08-09 09:34:37.399335 [V:onnxruntime:test, bfc_arena.cc:32 BFCArena] Creating 21 bins of max chunk size 256 to 268435456
2020-08-09 09:34:37.410516 [I:onnxruntime:, reshape_fusion.cc:37 ApplyImpl] Total fused reshape node count: 0
2020-08-09 09:34:37.417478 [I:onnxruntime:, reshape_fusion.cc:37 ApplyImpl] Total fused reshape node count: 0
2020-08-09 09:34:37.420131 [I:onnxruntime:, reshape_fusion.cc:37 ApplyImpl] Total fused reshape node count: 0
2020-08-09 09:34:37.422623 [V:onnxruntime:, inference_session.cc:671 TransformGraph] Node placements
2020-08-09 09:34:37.428863 [V:onnxruntime:, inference_session.cc:673 TransformGraph] All nodes have been placed on [CPUExecutionProvider].
2020-08-09 09:34:37.428954 [I:onnxruntime:, session_state.cc:25 SetGraph] SaveMLValueNameIndexMapping
2020-08-09 09:34:37.429079 [I:onnxruntime:, session_state.cc:70 SetGraph] Done saving OrtValue mappings.
2020-08-09 09:34:37.429925 [I:onnxruntime:, session_state_initializer.cc:178 SaveInitializedTensors] Saving initialized tensors.
2020-08-09 09:34:37.436300 [I:onnxruntime:, session_state_initializer.cc:223 SaveInitializedTensors] Done saving initialized tensors
2020-08-09 09:34:37.437255 [I:onnxruntime:, inference_session.cc:919 Initialize] Session successfully initialized.
Dropping the session options.
2020-08-09 09:34:37.448956 [I:onnxruntime:, sequential_executor.cc:145 Execute] Begin execution
2020-08-09 09:34:37.449041 [I:onnxruntime:test, bfc_arena.cc:259 AllocateRawInternal] Extending BFCArena for Cpu. bin_num:13 rounded_bytes:3154176
2020-08-09 09:34:37.449072 [I:onnxruntime:test, bfc_arena.cc:143 Extend] Extended allocation by 4194304 bytes.
2020-08-09 09:34:37.449087 [I:onnxruntime:test, bfc_arena.cc:147 Extend] Total allocated bytes: 9137152
2020-08-09 09:34:37.449104 [I:onnxruntime:test, bfc_arena.cc:150 Extend] Allocated memory at 0x7fb3b9585000 to 0x7fb3b9985000
2020-08-09 09:34:37.449176 [I:onnxruntime:test, bfc_arena.cc:259 AllocateRawInternal] Extending BFCArena for Cpu. bin_num:8 rounded_bytes:65536
2020-08-09 09:34:37.449196 [I:onnxruntime:test, bfc_arena.cc:143 Extend] Extended allocation by 4194304 bytes.
2020-08-09 09:34:37.449209 [I:onnxruntime:test, bfc_arena.cc:147 Extend] Total allocated bytes: 13331456
2020-08-09 09:34:37.449222 [I:onnxruntime:test, bfc_arena.cc:150 Extend] Allocated memory at 0x7fb3b9985000 to 0x7fb3b9d85000
Dropping Tensor.
Score for class [0] =  0.000045440578
Score for class [1] =  0.0038458686
Score for class [2] =  0.0001249467
Score for class [3] =  0.0011804511
Score for class [4] =  0.00131694
Dropping TensorFromOrt.
Dropping the session.
Dropping the memory information.
Dropping the environment.

See also the integration tests (onnxruntime/tests/integration_tests.rs) that performs simple model download and inference, validating the results.

Bindings Generation

Bindings (the basis of onnxruntime-sys) are committed to the git repository. This means bindgen is not a dependency anymore on every build (it was made optional) and thus build times are better.

To generate new bindings (for example if they don't exists for your platform or if a version bump occurred), build the crate with the generate-bindings feature.

NOTE: Make sure to have the rustfmt rustup component present so that bindings are formatted:

rustup component add rustfmt

Then on each platform build with the proper feature flag:

❯ cd onnxruntime-sys
❯ cargo build --features generate-bindings

Generating Bindings for Linux With Docker

Prepare the container:

❯ docker run -it --rm --name rustbuilder -v "$PWD":/usr/src/myapp -w /usr/src/myapp rust:1.50.0 /bin/bash
❯ apt-get update
❯ apt-get install clang
❯ rustup component add rustfmt

Generate the bindings:

❯ docker exec -it --user "$(id -u)":"$(id -g)" rustbuilder /bin/bash
❯ cd onnxruntime-sys
❯ cargo build --features generate-bindings

Generating Bindings for Windows With Vagrant

You can use nbigaouette/windows_vagrant_rust to provision a Windows VM that can build the project and generate the bindings.

Windows can build both x86 and x86_64 bindings:

❯ rustup target add i686-pc-windows-msvc x86_64-pc-windows-msvc
❯ cd onnxruntime-sys
❯ cargo build --features generate-bindings --target i686-pc-windows-msvc
❯ cargo build --features generate-bindings --target x86_64-pc-windows-msvc

Conduct

The Rust Code of Conduct shall be respected. For escalation or moderation issues please contact Nicolas (nbigaouette@gmail.com) instead of the Rust moderation team.

License

This project is licensed under either of

Apache License, Version 2.0, (LICENSE-APACHE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
MIT license (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)

at your option.

Compatibility

How each fact is measured

Runs on: GPU support unknown

What shows it

no dependency or feature matches a backend row
Native code: Required

Binds native code: onnxruntime-sys

Build uses a native toolchain: bindgen (feature generate-bindings)
Python bindings: No Python binding crate found
License: Apache-2.0 OR MIT

Compare with similar projects

Order: strongest tier first, then most downloads, then name, with unmeasured values last. A library counts downloads over 30 days. An app counts binary downloads per release. An app with none counts its crate downloads over 30 days. ML Rust runs this catalogue, so its closest project always gets a row.

onnxruntime-rs beside the projects that share a topic with it
Project	Downloads	Dependents	Stars	Latest release	Runs on (GPU)	Native code	License
onnxruntime-rs This page Listed Dormant Wrapper around Microsoft's ONNX Runtime	802 downloads over 30 days	3	332	0.0.142 Aug 2021	GPU support unknown	Binds native code: onnxruntime-sys. Build uses a native toolchain: bindgen (feature generate-bindings)	Apache-2.0 OR MIT
ort Featured A safe Rust wrapper for ONNX Runtime 1.31 - Optimize and accelerate machine learning inference & training	3,902,768 downloads over 30 days	694	2,611	2.0.0-rc.1523 Oct 2026	CUDA, WebGPU, ROCm	Binds native code: onnxruntime, ort-sys. Build uses a native toolchain: pkg-config (feature pkg-config)	Apache-2.0 OR MIT
rten Featured Tensor library for the RTen machine learning runtime	496,924 downloads over 30 days	29	360	0.27.02 Oct 2026	GPU support unknown	No native code found	Apache-2.0 OR MIT
orp Listed Lightweight framework for building ONNX runtime pipelines with ort	41,463 downloads over 30 days	6	14	1.0.05 Aug 2026	CUDA, ROCm	Binds native code: ort-sys	Apache-2.0
tract Listed Tiny, no-nonsense, self contained, TensorFlow and ONNX inference	24,404 downloads over 30 days	114	3,113	0.23.105 Nov 2026	CUDA, WebGPU, Metal	Build uses a native toolchain: cc	Apache-2.0 OR MIT
blazr App Listed Inference server for LLMs, speech and embeddings: OpenAI-compatible routes with streaming, plus speech synthesis (TTS) and transcription (ASR). Serves Llama, Mistral, Qwen, Mamba2, MLA+MoE and hybrid models from SafeTensors, AWQ, GPTQ and GGUF.	8 binary downloads per release	Not applicable	7	0.7.16 Nov 2026	CUDA, WebGPU	Binds native code: ring (feature distributed)	Apache-2.0
wonnx Archived Wonnx is an ONNX runtime based on wgpu aimed at being a universal GPU runtime, written in Rust.	146 downloads over 30 days	1	1,753	0.5.130 Sep 2023	WebGPU	No native code found	Apache-2.0 OR MIT

Compare these

All projects in Run and serve models

Why ListedNo archive, New or Featured rule places it, so it is Listed.

What it lacks for Featured

It has 0 active dependents and 0 new dependents in 365 days. Featured needs 11 active dependents or 9 new dependents in 365 days. The repository route reads 332 stars, 103 forks and 9 contributors. It needs 4,539 stars, 434 forks and 79 contributors together.
Every version is 0.0.x.
The project is dormant and not finished. Dormancy rule

What else the check found

The last activity is on 19 Jul 2022, 1574 days ago. That reaches the 450 days the rules expect, so the project is dormant. Dormancy rule
The oldest outside issue waits 2172 days for a reply, past the limit of 270. No maintainer replied in 365 days. Rot signals rule

Not measured: Latest release fails cargo check.

Exact rules: Listed, Featured library. The check on 9 Nov 2026 applied thresholds version 9.

Every rule outcome, as the check records it

expected-interval: version 0.0.14 base 450: E = 450 days
dormancy: last activity 2022-07-19, 1574 days ago, E = 450: dormant
rot: oldest unanswered issue 2172 days (limit 270), no maintainer reply in 365 days
featured: not featured: active_users 0 < 11 and new_adopters 0 < 9 and repository route stars 332 (needs 4539), forks 103 (needs 434), contributors 9 (needs 79); every version is 0.0.x; dormant and not stable
listed: listed: no archive, new or featured rule applies

Crates2 crates

onnxruntime Primary
onnxruntime-sys

Measurements and sources

Each signal row shows the raw value, its source and the fetch date. The Sources list gathers every distinct source on this page. Movement needs more history.

Sources6 sources

Description: the crates.io description
crates.io database dump, fetched 8 Nov 2026
RustSec advisory database, fetched 8 Nov 2026
GitHub repository, fetched 9 Nov 2026
crates.io package, fetched 6 Nov 2026
GitHub contributors, fetched 6 Nov 2026

Adoption0 active dependents, 0 new dependents in 365 days1 not measured

Adoption measurements
Signal	Value	Source	Fetched	Counts
Active dependents	0	crates.io database dump	8 Nov 2026	Yes
New dependents (365 days)	0	crates.io database dump	8 Nov 2026	Yes
Peak active dependents	1.5	crates.io database dump	8 Nov 2026	Yes
Active dependents as a share of the peak	0.9875	crates.io database dump	8 Nov 2026	Yes
Binary downloads per release	Not measured			Yes

MaintenanceLatest human commit: 4 years ago3 not measured

Maintenance measurements
Signal	Value	Source	Fetched	Counts
Latest human commit	2022-07-19	GitHub repository	9 Nov 2026	Yes
Latest release	2021-08-02	crates.io database dump	8 Nov 2026	Yes
First release	2020-08-06	crates.io database dump	8 Nov 2026	Yes
Latest version	0.0.14	crates.io database dump	8 Nov 2026	Yes
Days the oldest outside issue waits for a reply	2172	GitHub repository	9 Nov 2026	Yes
Maintainer replies over 365 days	0	GitHub repository	9 Nov 2026	Yes
Repository archived	false	GitHub repository	9 Nov 2026	Yes
Repository gone	false	GitHub repository	9 Nov 2026	Yes
Release commit or manifest in the repo	true	crates.io package	6 Nov 2026	Yes
Published docs	true	crates.io database dump	8 Nov 2026	Yes
Latest release fails cargo check	Not measured			Yes
Build check date	Not measured			Yes
Build check toolchain	Not measured			Yes

SecurityUnpatched vulnerabilities: none

Security measurements
Signal	Value	Source	Fetched	Counts
Unpatched vulnerabilities past the grace window	none	RustSec advisory database	8 Nov 2026	Yes
RustSec unmaintained advisory	none	RustSec advisory database	8 Nov 2026	Yes
Deprecation notice	none	crates.io database dump	8 Nov 2026	Yes
Deprecated requirement	none	crates.io database dump	8 Nov 2026	Yes

Distribution13 releases, 802 downloads over 30 days5 not measured

Distribution measurements
Signal	Value	Source	Fetched	Counts
Releases	13	crates.io database dump	8 Nov 2026	Yes
Downloads over 30 days	802	crates.io database dump	8 Nov 2026	Yes
Binary downloads over the last 3 releases	Not measured			Yes
Homebrew installs on request over 365 days	Not measured			Yes
Repology repository families	Not measured			Yes
Docker pull growth over 90 days	Not measured			Yes
Docker pulls at the growth baseline	Not measured			Yes
Every version a prerelease	true	crates.io database dump	8 Nov 2026	Yes
Every version 0.0.x	true	crates.io database dump	8 Nov 2026	Yes
Every version yanked	false	crates.io database dump	8 Nov 2026	Yes
Crate deleted from crates.io	false	crates.io database dump	8 Nov 2026	Yes

Repository332 stars, 103 forks, 9 contributors, 447 commits. Stars alone never qualify a project.

Repository measurements
Signal	Value	Source	Fetched	Counts
GitHub stars	332	GitHub repository	9 Nov 2026	Yes — one part of the repository route
GitHub forks	103	GitHub repository	9 Nov 2026	Yes — one part of the repository route
Contributors with a GitHub account	9	GitHub contributors	6 Nov 2026	Yes — one part of the repository route
Commits on the default branch	447	GitHub repository	9 Nov 2026	No
Repository's main crate left out of the entry	none	crates.io database dump	8 Nov 2026	Yes

Facts that never count

Facts that never count measurements
Signal	Value	Source	Fetched	Counts
License	Apache-2.0 OR MIT	crates.io database dump	8 Nov 2026	No
Runs on, from listed crates and their direct dependencies	GPU support unknown	crates.io database dump	8 Nov 2026	No
What shows each backend	no dependency or feature matches a backend row	crates.io database dump	8 Nov 2026	No
Native code, from listed crates and their dependencies	Binds native code: onnxruntime-sys. Build uses a native toolchain: bindgen (feature generate-bindings)	crates.io database dump	8 Nov 2026	No
Python bindings, from direct dependencies of listed crates	No Python binding crate found	crates.io database dump	8 Nov 2026	No
Crates that depend on a listed crate directly	3	crates.io database dump	8 Nov 2026	No

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Judgments

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