Python Frameworks You Need to Learn in 2021 – A Comparison

Types of Python Framework

There are three types of Python frameworks, popular among web developers and programmers.

• Full-Stack Framework

These frameworks are a single solution for all of the developmental needs. They come pre-packaged with all the essentials required to build a phenomenal app. It has MVC architecture, ORM technique, routers, templating engine, etc. all in the same place. These frameworks are typically used for bigger enterprise-level projects.

• Microframework

A lightweight framework that offers only essential things necessary for app development with minimal coding. They lack features such as form validation, database abstraction layer, etc., and other functionalities. However, microframework can be extended with the databases on demand. You can easily scale them to a full-stack solution.

• Asynchronous Framework

An asynchronous framework is like a microframework extended version that can handle a larger set of concurrent connections. Using this framework, you don’t need to execute your tasks consequently. Instead, you can run another task before the completion of the previous one. They use the programming language’s asyncio library.

Top Python Full-Stack Framework

Supporting the development of the backend services, frontend interfaces, and the database, a full-stack framework is not recommended for smaller application development. Python offers more than one full-stack frameworks, making the lives of the developers easy.

• Django

A highly focused enterprise-level framework, Django ensures a quick and efficient developmental process. Specifically, the phenomenal design of Django saves time and money for the business. Making developmental work easier for the developers. This leads to minimized coding efforts and reduces redundancies.

Unique Features of Django Framework

• A vast ecosystem of functions
• Database version control
• SEO optimizable
• Distinctive templating engine
• URL routing
• Object-relational mapper (ORM)
• Pluggable and highly scalable
• Supports authentication and internationalization
• Time-tested framework with a plethora of ready-to-use libraries

Pros

• Django comes with pre-packaged functionalities that can be imported conveniently to start a project.
• Offers a unique and incredible community, actively working on stabilizing the framework, making it more developer friendly.
• Highly scalable framework with admirable functionalities enabling businesses to create projects as per expectations.
• Has a dedicated admin panel that can manage basic CRUD operations, minimizing the efforts of coding initially.

Cons

• Not an ideal framework if you desire to create real-time applications.
• A strongly opinionated framework, making it a more monolithic version, especially for beginners.

Leading Project Examples

Instagram, Spotify, YouTube, The Washington Post, Mozilla, Pinterest, etc.

• Pyramid

It’s a minimalistic open-source framework that well adjusts with larger applications and smaller prototypes. With minimal complexity, the Pyramid framework keeps up with technological improvements. It’s a perfect partner for developers scaling smaller apps.

Unique Features of Pyramid Framework

• Uses predicates and renderers
• Offers flexible authentication and authorization
• Excels in URL generation
• Phenomenal API development with function decorators
• Specification of asset location in the package
• Configures extension, testing, and data documentation

Pros

• Either it’s a templating engine or the database, anything is easily swapped out for another one.
• Highly flexible framework that uses multiple components for the same application or connects two unique databases conveniently.
• Simple in sending Ajax requests due to XHR views and decorators.
• Supports SQLAlchemy, allowing you to create intricate queries easily.

Cons

• Needs time in preparing the tools
• An experienced resource in the Pyramid framework can easily use it for web development
• While developing simple applications, SQLAlchemy isn’t helpful

Leading Project Examples

Easy blog networks, AdRoll, Klein & Partner KG, Lex Machina, Survey Monkey, Charte.ca, Substance-D etc.

• TurboGears

The data-driven and open-source framework used for swift and easy application development. The user-friendly TurboGears framework offers highly flexible ORM and reusable snippets. The full-stack Python framework supports tools such as Repoze, WebOb, Genshi, and SQLAlchemy.

Unique Features of TurboGears Framework

• All features of the framework are implemented as function decorators
• Provides horizontal data partitioning
• Supports multiple databases, MVC architecture, and PasteScript templates
• Easy MochiKit JavaScript library integration
• Uses ToscaWidgets to simplify the coordination of front end design and the server deployment
• Uses Pylons as web servers
• Validation supports the FormEncode

Pros

• Can be easily scaled up to a full-stack solution due to highly versatile dynamics.
• Allows you to put a prototype and scale it up to a full-fledged app solution.
• You can create plug-in modules that replace existing modules and offer built-in extensibility.

Cons

• The excessive freedom of extending the framework may become overwhelming for you.

Leading Project Examples

Kamisons, Apache Allura, Bisque, Fedora Community, Noodle NG, PandNCeramics, etc.

• Web2Py

If you are looking for a scalable full-stack framework, then Web2Py is your answer. It’s phenomenally powerful when it comes to data handling. Web2Py comes with a web-based IDE that includes a debugger, code editor, and one-click simply deployment. It also features a ticketing system that issues tickets to its users when an error befalls.

Unique Features of Web2Py Framework

• Requires no configuration and installation
• Ensures role-based access control and built-in data security
• Able to run on Windows, Linux/Unix, Mac, Amazon EC2, Google App Engine, and other web hosting that supports Python 2.5-2.7
• Follow the MVC architecture and support internationalization
• Readability of multiple protocols and offers backward compatibility

Pros

• Preferable framework for complex applications due to its user-friendly dynamics.
• A highly flexible, powerful, and extendable framework that can be integrated with external libraries
• Either the code is old or new, it can still run on the latest versions of the framework without compromise.

Cons

• Inflexible plug-in system with unorthodox design pattern
• Provides no support for the Python 3
• Difficult in managing data models loading system

Leading Project Examples

IMSA, Showcase Workshop, iTel Networks, etc.

• CubicWeb

A semantic Python web framework that is driven by the application data model. CubicWeb uses cubes that are joined together via web server, configuration file, and database instead of the models or the views.

Unique Features of CubicWeb Framework

• Supports multiple databases and Resource Description Framework (RDF)
• Offers reusable components and Web Ontology Language (OWL)
• Provides Mercurial and Subversion backend storage
• Semi-automatic generation of the JSON, text, XML, XHTML

Pros

• Encourages the developers to utilize reusable components multiple times instead of writing the codes from scratch every time.
• It has Relation Query Language (RQL) which is designed to have clear syntax, manipulating the data repositories.

Cons

• An unwarranted number of functions makes it harder for the developers during some projects.

Leading Project Examples

Logilab

Top Python Microframework

More like a minimalistic web app framework, the microframework lacks the majority of the functionality. It’s not a full-fledged framework that can provide authentication functionality, input validation, web template design, etc. Microframework can provide focused essential components required for building an application.

• CherryPy

A lightweight, object-oriented, open-source minimalistic web framework used to create stand-alone applications. CherryPy is a preferred framework if you want to develop data access and templating technologies. CherryPy runs on an OS that supports Python. It’s a simple to use and swift framework offering unique solutions, allowing you to handle any project conveniently.

Unique Features of CherryPy Framework

• Offers powerful configuration system
• Comes with built-in testing, coverage, profiling support
• CherryPy is an HTTP/1.1-compliant WSGI thread-pooled web server
• Ensures flexible plugin system while supporting simultaneous HTTP servers

Pros

• CherryPy has a production-ready WSGI server, an alternative to gunicorn
• Supports a wide range of functionality using dispatcher patterns
• Provides more authentic format to the coders

Cons

• Lacks documentation
• Takes a lot of time to figure out the required features of the project

Leading Project Examples

Juju, HelloSponsor, Aktion Mensch, etc.

• Bottle

Originally designed to build unique APIs and other simple applications, the Bottle framework is a minimalistic microframework. It’s a great fit for smaller projects and prototyping or developing personal applications. Even though it’s faster than its competitors, however, lacks the functionalities required to build larger apps. All the developmental work happens in the single bottle.py file only.

Unique Features of Bottle Framework

• Offers built-in HTTP server
• Support WSGI, URL parameter, and external template engines
• Provides support of plugin for different databases
• Ensures easy routing, templates, utilities, and a robust server

Pros

• Highly flexible microframework supporting smaller website with routing and templating
• Allows you to add plugins without a problem

Cons

• Not recommended for larger web apps
• Limited documentation and relies only on Python library

Leading Project Examples

Total Recall VR, Pattle, MARS Recruitment, CleverClicks, etc.

• Falcon

Being a bare-metal Python web API framework, Falcon is an excellent choice for developing REST APIs. It allows the developers to build clean designs and never restricts in choosing the libraries for authorization and database. It also doesn’t need dependencies to build the HTTP APIs.

Unique Features of Falcon Framework

• Highly optimized and extensible codebase
• Genuine code coverage with inclusive test suite
• Provide extra speed boost with Cython support
• Offers intuitive routing with an idiomatic HTTP error response
• Convenient upfront exception handling

Pros

• Falcon can develop REST APIs allowing the developers to choose designs
• Has a lightweight, simple, general-purpose framework
• Uses standard libraries, six, and mimeparse

Cons

• Has limited scope with few dependencies making it opinionated

Leading Project Examples

Vokal, Fivestars, etc.

• Dash

A good option if you are looking to build analytical web applications. The Dash microframework is an ideal Python framework for data scientists, not intrigued with the mechanics of web development. The applications developed using Dash run on Flash and use HTTP requests. It’s a useful analytical web application development framework.

Unique Features of Dash Framework

• Requires minimal boilerplate code
• Efficient in error handling (Dash Deployment Server)
• Seamless LDAP integration (Dash Deployment Server)
• Simple and intuitive interface with a wide range of customization
• Provides URL routing (Dash Deployment Server)

Pros

• Allows creating stateless web services making it easier to scale the number of users
• Uses React.js to render the components and includes an impeccable plugin system
• Easy to scale ensuring multi-access easily

Cons

• May need sophisticated components rather than Dash default ones
• Have to import crucial components from React
• May encounter issues with the structure

Leading Project Examples

Finding Bigfoot, Great Balls of Fire, etc.

• Flask

Flask is a unique foundation for the rapid scaling of web projects. It’s a Python framework, available under the BSD license. Flask is more like a WSGI framework ensuring freedom to the developers in choosing libraries and tools as per their needs. Due to its lightweight and modular design, this microframework is highly adaptable.

Unique Features of Flask Framework

• Support plug-in from any ORM and Jinja2 templating
• Provide RESTful request dispatching
• Has integrated support for unit testing
• Handles the HTTP request and supports secure cookie sessions
• WSGI 1.0 compliance with Unicode-based structure

Pros

• Minimalistic and straightforward Python framework
• Easy to build a prototype for web application

Cons

• Requires highly experienced resource to handle the programming

Leading Project Examples

Lyft, Rainiest, Netflix, etc.

• Hug

A hug is one of the most phenomenal microframework offering the developers to develop an API and then reuse it whenever they need it. Either you are developing HTTP or CLI, the Hug Python framework ensures swift development. It requires little integration as well as coding while providing amazing results.

Unique Features of Hug Framework

• Supports annotation-powered validation and automated documentation
• Compliance with Cython
• Ensures “write once – use everywhere” philosophy
• In-built version management allowing usage of Python library

Pros

• Genuinely simplifies the development of APIs
• Offers multiple interfaces
• Unique automated documentation generator framework

Cons

• May give an error when the pre-processing request

Leading Project Examples

Online

Top Asynchronous Framework

The asynchronous framework is a recent addition to the Python framework family. It’s typically a microframework that allows web developers to handle larger concurrent connections. These frameworks use non-blocking sockets and asyncio libraries.

• AIOHTTP

AIOHTTP is a Python framework that relies on Python 3.5+ and can be used as both, the server web framework and client framework. It makes use of Python’s asyncio library and redirects queries to the functions developed to be handled.

Unique Features of AIOHTTP Framework

• Supports middleware
• Redirects the queries to functions
• Easy pluggable routing
• Provides support to both, Client WebSockets and Server WebSockets

Pros

• Provides request object and also has a router to redirect the queries
• The application object handles the orchestration work
• Built-in web server used to run the script

Leading Project Examples

Hotjar, Hivestack, Belvo, Xbird, etc.

• Sanic

Sanic is a simple and open-source Python framework that handles asynchronous requests for the swift HTTP response. It’s compatible with Python 3.5 async and await features. Developers uses the Sanic framework as it enhances the developing speed and offers non-blocking competencies.

Unique Features of Sanic Framework

• Supports unique logging that includes access and errors
• Includes class-based views
• Support plug-in and blueprints essential for sub-routing
• Dot-notation for the modification of the configuration object

Pros

• Due to Python 3.5, Sanic makes the code non-blocking
• It is ASGI compliant and can be deployed with an alternative ASGI webserver
• Runs of the highly performant HTTP server

Leading Project Examples

Joblift, Oh BiBi, etc.

• Tornado

An open-source Python asynchronous framework, Tornado focuses on speed as well as the ability to handle high volume traffic. It utilizes a non-blocking network and resolves the C10k issue. Tornado is a genuine choice for applications that require long-lived user connections.

Unique Features of Tornado Framework

• Supports built-in user authentication
• Enables the implementation of 3rd party authorization scheme
• Offers a non-blocking HTTP client
• Provides real-time services with premium quality output
• Verify localization and translation process

Pros

• Powerful non-blocking network I/O
• Can scale up to ten thousand open connections conveniently

Cons

• Not based on WSGI and typically runs on a single thread to process

Leading Project Examples

Uploadcare

The Bottom Line

There are a lot of Python frameworks, some are amazing and scalable while others are unique in handling single applications. However, all the frameworks are flexible and versatile, making the lives of the developers easy and opportune.

Though some Python frameworks are beneficial for smaller projects while others are perfect for handling complex ones. But all of them are simple and easy to use during programming and application development.

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