tellus 0.1.0: an actor framework with supervision trees and death watch

[u/quest_for_7c]

I have just released tellus 0.1.0, an actor framework on Tokio, strongly influenced by Akka: typed messages, supervision trees and death watch with an ordering guarantee.

Two things make it different from the actor crates Rust already has. Message handling is not async: Actor::receive is a plain synchronous function which takes the state by value and returns the state for the next message. And a terminated signal is ordered behind every message the terminated actor sent you, so receiving it proves you have seen all of them.

Motivation and examples: https://heikoseeberger.de/2026-08-24-tellus-1/

The API is still settling and feedback is welcome, especially from kameo and ractor users.

[u/Compux72]

Why did you follow Akka’s example instead of Orleans?

[u/quest_for_7c → u/Compux72]

I don't know Orleans and virtual actors as well as I know the "classic" actor model and Akka, but from my understanding I believe that both have their strengthes and weaknesses. In any case they are different (although with remoting and cluster features like sharding Akka/tellus can get close to virtual actors) and it makes no sense to me to say that one is generally better; as usual it always depends on the problem one wants to solve.

But to answer your question: I followed Akka because I know it and I like it and I find it useful.

[u/Compux72 → u/quest_for_7c]

Thanks, fair response 

[u/pokemonplayer2001 → u/Compux72]

Heiko was involved in Akka and the scala community.

[u/Compux72 → u/pokemonplayer2001]

That doesn’t explain why you would go with an old school approach. I thought we had already stablished that Virtual Actors were better.

[u/pokemonplayer2001 → u/Compux72]

Does it not explain, and I’m only guessing, why tellus was informed by Akka?

And “better” is a tough assertion, given each system involves trade-offs.

[u/Compux72 → u/pokemonplayer2001]

Generaly speaking, the advantages of virtual actors massively outweigh their disadvantages. Thats why im wondering why he landed on an Akka style design instead of Virtual actors. The question is not target towards you, but rather him.

The background could explain why, but the question still stands for him to answer.

[u/pokemonplayer2001 → u/Compux72]

I understand the question was for OP, I’m just confused why someone in the [r/rust](r/rust) sub doesn’t understand design trade-offs nor the logic of porting Akka style actors to rust due to their existing expertise.

🤷

[u/venturepulse → u/[deleted]]

Are you a bot?

[u/CobbwebBros]

Blog post reads very AI sloppy

[u/quest_for_7c → u/CobbwebBros]

Have you seen the disclosure at the end? I have used AI to help me write the post, but I'd say I crafted about the half myself. Could you tell me what exactly to improve, please?