Marten is a new Go web framework built entirely on the standard library, rejecting the dependency bloat common in tools like Gin and Echo. Its core principle is zero dependencies, aiming for simplicity and maintainability. The v0.1.3 release introduces robust static file serving, completing a feature set for production-ready APIs.

The framework uses a radix tree router for efficient path matching and includes 14 built-in middleware functions, from logging to rate limiting. Performance benchmarks show it's competitive with established frameworks, despite using only `net/http` and `encoding/json`. This approach minimizes Docker image size and build times, ideal for microservices.

Marten's source code is intentionally transparent at ~2,000 lines, serving as an educational tool for understanding framework internals. Future development will add WebSocket support and template helpers, but always under the zero-dependency constraint. It's a focused experiment proving that capable web services don't require a sprawling package ecosystem.