Gorilla mux (github.com/gorilla/mux) is the router most people mean when they search gorilla mux, golang gorilla mux, go gorilla mux, mux gorilla, or golang mux. This gorilla mux tutorial gives a practical gorilla mux example: install the module, register routes with HTTP methods, read path variables, attach middleware, and optionally compare gorilla mux vs gin. For plain net/http, see HTTP in Go; for a framework-style alternative, see Gin or Chi.
Tested with Go 1.24 on Linux. Examples use modules and run on your machine (
go run .), not the browser-only Playground.
Install github.com/gorilla/mux
From a module (packaging, modules list):
go mod init example.com/demo
go get github.com/gorilla/muxImport path github.com/gorilla/mux (docs often shorten that to gorilla/mux for the same module).
Router, methods, and path variables
mux.NewRouter() returns an *mux.Router that you pass to http.ListenAndServe(addr, r). Use .Methods(...) so the same path can differ by verb. Path vars use {name}; optional regex uses {name:pattern}.
package main
import (
"log"
"net/http"
"github.com/gorilla/mux"
)
func health(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
w.WriteHeader(http.StatusOK)
w.Write([]byte("ok"))
}
func user(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
id := mux.Vars(r)["id"]
w.Write([]byte("user:" + id))
}
func main() {
r := mux.NewRouter()
r.HandleFunc("/health", health).Methods(http.MethodGet)
r.HandleFunc("/users/{id:[0-9]+}", user).Methods(http.MethodGet)
log.Fatal(http.ListenAndServe(":8080", r))
}Run with go run . and hit GET /health and GET /users/42 (for example with curl); you should see ok and user:42.
Subrouters and prefixes
Group routes with PathPrefix + Subrouter() so shared paths and middleware stay tidy—common for /api/v1 style APIs.
api := r.PathPrefix("/api/v1").Subrouter()
api.HandleFunc("/items", listItems).Methods(http.MethodGet)Implement listItems like any other http.HandlerFunc.
Middleware with r.Use
Use chains http.Handler wrappers around matched routes (subrouters can have their own Use).
package main
import (
"log"
"net/http"
"github.com/gorilla/mux"
)
func logging(next http.Handler) http.Handler {
return http.HandlerFunc(func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
log.Printf("%s %s", r.Method, r.URL.Path)
next.ServeHTTP(w, r)
})
}
func main() {
r := mux.NewRouter()
r.Use(logging)
r.HandleFunc("/x", func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
w.Write([]byte("x"))
}).Methods(http.MethodGet)
log.Fatal(http.ListenAndServe(":8080", r))
}Gorilla mux vs Gin (and stdlib)
Gorilla mux vs gin is mostly library vs framework: mux only routes and dispatches to http.HandlerFunc; Gin gives gin.Context, binding, JSON helpers, and a larger middleware catalog at the cost of locking into Gin’s types. net/http.ServeMux in modern Go adds method-based patterns for simpler apps—use mux when you need regex path vars, host constraints, or nested subrouters without adopting a full framework.
Summary
This gorilla mux tutorial covered installing github.com/gorilla/mux, a minimal go gorilla mux server with method-aware routes and mux.Vars, grouping with subrouters, and r.Use middleware—enough to ship a small REST surface. Searches for gorilla mux golang or gorilla mux example map to the same primitives; pair routing with your own persistence layer per project needs. Official repo: github.com/gorilla/mux. For broader web context, see web server and web frameworks.
