Take a closer look at Python as the most widespread programming language. Find out the strengths and weaknesses of its top 5 trendy frameworks.

Best Python Frameworks for Web Development: Pros & Cons From Our Engineers

The popularity of Python has been growing at a rapid pace. By September 2021, it has ranked the top of programming languages worldwide.

What are the reasons for Python’s tremendous growth? And what frameworks should you opt for when developing web solutions? To pick the best suitable framework, you first have to get acquainted with its peculiarities. Our blog post carefully evaluates the top Python frameworks for web development in 2021-2022.

Continue reading to take a closer look at Python and find out the strengths and weaknesses of its top 5 trendy frameworks.

What Is Python?

Python is an object-oriented, interpreted, and interactive programming language with intelligible syntax and solidly built libraries. It is also a general-purpose language created to develop multiple different programs, such as software and web development, data science, automation, etc. This versatility, reliability, and efficient speed help developers to achieve their goals with fewer lines of code.

Released in 1991, Python had gone through various modifications on its way to the status of #1 programming language, overtaking Java and C#. Tech giants such as Google, Netflix, Instagram are opting for Python for web development.

Python provides engineers with a wide variety of frameworks. If you are willing to code using any Python-based web application, you must pick any of the most common Python frameworks.

Top-5 Python Frameworks

1.   Django

Django is a free and open-source framework that encourages quick development and clean design. Being among the best Python frameworks enables engineers to develop APIs and web applications rapidly.

Features:

• URL routing.
• Template engine.
• Database version control.
• Object-relational mapper (ORM).
• Great variety of ready-to-use libraries.
• Support for web servers, authentication, and internationalization.

Advantages:

• Simple database management.
• Basic functionality is pre-installed and can be imported into the project as soon as it is launched.
• A strong community brings professionals of all levels together, where all questions can be answered.
• Django provides developers with detailed documentation.
• Scalability helps to handle large amounts of data and a huge number of user requests.
• The administration panel helps to manage using basic CRUD operations. It simplifies the work on any project: you don’t need to write code for this functionality, and you can start a project right away.
• Django is a core solution in IoT, IT giants, and FinTech companies.

Disadvantages:

• Lack of conventions.
• No set of principles for developers to follow by web development.
• Unsuitable for smaller projects and products with a few features and requirements
• Django calls for a lot of coding, which increases server processing time.
• Doesn’t encourage developers to learn Python packages and tools. Instead, Django development focuses on providing programmers with code-oriented programming.
• Includes many features and configurations that developers can’t easily understand, making it difficult to learn.

2.   CherryPy

CherryPy is another leading Python framework. Being open-source and object-oriented, it has proved to be exceptionally quick and stable. The framework enables developers to build web applications in a much simpler way.

Features:

• Built-in plugins.
• Built-in coverage, testing, and profiling support.
• Support for multiple, simultaneous HTTP servers.
• HTTP/1.1 compliant and thread-pooled WSGI Web Server.
• Configuration system.

Advantages:

• A production-ready server is available to use the production-ready WSGI server.
• Dispatch templates: CherryPy brings order to code and provides a lot of functionality with dispatching templates.

Disadvantages:

• It seriously lacks documentation which is a big downside for beginners. For instance, it might cause problems in the project’s midst with figuring out a required feature.

3. TurboGears

TurboGears is a data-driven full-stack web application framework. It enables software engineers to streamline Python website development utilizing diverse JavaScript development tools. Thus, it empowers them to begin developing web applications with an insignificant setup.

Features:

• Suitable for solving complex industrial-strength problems.
• Multiple database support, which also offers a transaction manager to help with multi-database deployments.
• Uses MVC pattern architecture.
• Make use of ToscaWidgets.
• Contains several libraries.
• It provides support for multiple template engines.
• All features are executed as function decorators.
• Accessible command-line tools.

Advantages:

• Universality: TurboGears is a microframework with the ability to transform into a full-stack solution. It’s enough to start with a simple prototype and gradually scale it to a more complex project.
• Scalability due to built-in functionality enables you to create your own plugin modules or modify existing ones. All these processes are under your control.

Disadvantages:

• The need to expand the framework if necessary.
• Some of the used technologies/frameworks are outdated.

4. Flask

Flask is a popular Python web framework used for developing complex, open-ended web applications. It aims to help build a strong web application base. The framework offers suggestions but doesn’t enforce any dependencies or project layout. Although it has been used by big companies such as LinkedIn and Pinterest, Flask suits best for small and easy projects.

Features:

• The framework aims to keep the core simple but extensible.
• Includes many hooks to customize its behavior.
• Built-in development server and debugger.
• Integrated unit testing support (code with quality).
• Uses Jinja2 templating (tags, filters, macros, and more).

Advantages:

• Flask is flexible and easy to learn.
• It comes with a template engine that allows using the same user interface for multiple pages.
• The community provides multiple extensions to ease the integration of new functionalities.
• Routing URLs is easy.
• The small core and easily extensible.

Disadvantages:

• It handles every request in turns, one at a time. Thus, it will take more time to serve multiple requests.
• You may need to install more modules because of the fewer tools at your disposal.
• Using more modules is seen as a third-party involvement which could increase the security risk.
• The Flask community is not big, so finding a solution to a problem might be complicated.

5. Pyramid

Pyramid is a general and open-source web application development framework aimed at creating both small and large applications. Pyramid provides multiple features to make writing complex software more effortless. Besides, this framework is considered a lighter alternative to Django. It has routing and authentication functions, but most other elements, such as templating and database management, will require external libraries.

Features:

• Predicates and renderers.
• Flexible authentication and authorization.
• Function decorators.
• Single-file applications.
• Templating and asset specifications.
• URL generation.

Advantages:

• Minimal, fast, and flexible.
• Free and open-source.
• Quick prototyping.
• Extended functionality.
• SQLAlchemy enables developers to work with complex projects.
• Flexibility in replacing components.

Disadvantages:

• It is complicated to develop complex apps without a deep understanding of Pyramid’s specifications.
• You can encounter hard-to-solve problems.
• Documentation should be improved.

Final Thoughts

You can accomplish everything you want with any of the frameworks. It just depends on what you want to achieve and the features you’d like to reuse. Decide on the advantages you need and disadvantages you could not tolerate to get the best Python development experience.