This article delves in some of the widespread Python web frameworks and what makes them popular today.
Python is one of the most popular and versatile programming languages. There are thousands of Python packages, and these allow you to extend Python capabilities to any domain,be it web development, Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence, or machine learning, and scientific computing. We can work with many different web frameworks and packages to easily build simple and complex RESTful Web APIs with Python, and we can combine these frameworks with other Python packages.
Popular Python Web Frameworks
We can leverage our existing knowledge of Python and its web frameworks to code the different pieces of our RESTful Web APIs and their ecosystem. Python makes it easy to create RESTful Web APIs.Here are some of the ideal web frameworks to go for:
Full-Stack Framework
This framework offers everything that a developer might need during his course of developing an application. It offers various functionalities like web service, data management, data storage, templates, and form generation and validation. Here are two popular Full-stack frameworks:
1. Django
If we want to develop an app which interacts with a RESTfulAPI to perform CRUD operations, we can consider a web framework which has ORM, uses the simplest possible relational database, avoids complex installations or configurations and is less time-consuming. Django Rest Framework (DRF) will allow us to easily accomplish this task and start making HTTP requests to our RESTful web service.Django is a full-stack Python framework perfect for quick development of apps. It comes with numerous features; here are some of the best ones:
- Open source
- Object-Relational Mapping (ORM)
- Follows the don’t repeat yourself principle
- Minimum configuration
- Supports databases like MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, and Oracle
2. Pyramid
Pyramidis another favorite full-stack web framework which has replaced the Pylons web framework. It has the ability to work with applications of all sizes. Pyramid offers easy maintenance of the code for the APIs which does not require ORM to be configured. Some of Pyramid’ssignificant features include:
- Open source
- Works in a simplified manner
- Swift development
- Single-file applications
- Predicators
Microframework
A microframework, as its name suggests, is a minimalistic web framework which offers only a few functionalities. Unlike the full-stack framework, microframework is lightweight and requires the developer to add the additional requirements manually. Flask and Bottle are two of the most commonly used microframework. Here’s a brief look into it:
1. Flask
Flask, inspired by the Sinatra Ruby framework, is a microframeworkavailable under the BSD license. It requires a Jinja2 template and Werkzeug WSGI toolkit and can use any kind of extensions required. When it comes to Flask, the advantages are many; some of them are as follows:
- Lightweight
- Modular and adaptable
- Built-in fast debugger
- Unicode-based
- Support available for unit testing
- Secure cookies support
2. Bottle
Bottle is amicro-framework, which is fast and simple. With a built-inHTTP development server, Bottle is ideal for small web apps and implements everything in a single source file. A developer can work closely with the hardware when working with Bottle. This is one of its biggest advantages; other advantages include:
- Perfect for prototyping
- Full support formako, jinja2, and cheetah and various other databases
- No dependencies other than Python Standard Library
- Works best for simple apps
- Ideal for learning web framework organization
Asynchronous Framework
This framework is perfect for high-performance applications. It supports high concurrency and is one of the most popular frameworks today. Tornado and Growler are some of the trending asynchronous frameworks to opt for. Here’s a look at both of them:
1. Tornado
Originally developed forFriendFeed, acquired by Facebook in 2009, Tornado is an asynchronous Python web framework that solves the C10k issue (can handle more than ten thousand concurrent connections). Like Django and Bottle, Tornado is swift, optimized, and offers ones of the best ways to structure the applications. Tornado’s main features are:
- Real-time services
- High performance
- Dealing with huge request numbers over a small timeframe
- Diverse apps
- Access to Python’s extensive data libraries
2. Growler
Growler is another asynchronous framework and is inspired by the NodeJS and the Express/Connect frameworks. It is actually a microframework written on top of Python’sasyncio library. It uses a single application object and a series of middleware to process HTTP requests and is a top choice among the Python frameworks. Some of Growler’s prominent features include:
- Support for open source packages
- Swift
- Easy to see program flow
- Great for implementing complex applications
- Links the asyncio server to your project’s middleware
This sums up our list of the popular Python web frameworks. There are many more frameworks that you can look at and experiment with. Each of these comes with its own distinct features.You can comparethem to find the one that best suits your needs.
If this article has you intrigued you about the various web frameworks for Python, you can explore Gaston C. Hillar’s Hands-On RESTful Python Web Services – Second Edition to explore the best tools and techniques to create a lightweight, maintainable, and scalable Python web services. Hands-On RESTful Python Web Services – Second Edition will cover the best tools you can use to build engaging web services and show you how to develop RESTful APIs using the most popular Python frameworks and all the necessary stacks with Python, combined with related libraries and tools.
