Top 10 Python Web Frameworks Compared

7 min readJan 25, 2025

Simple Summary of the Above Frameworks:

Comprehensive: Django
Small and Elegant: Flask, sanic, bottle
Asynchronous and High — Concurrency Support: fastapi, tornado, sanic, aiohttp
Front — Backend Separation (API Development): fastapi, django — rest — framework, falcon, hug

Django

Django is an open — source full — stack web framework written in Python. It’s powerful, flexible and easy — to — use, suitable for various web applications.

Features:

Adopts the Model — View — Controller (MVC) design pattern to separate application and presentation logic, allowing developers to focus on business logic.
Offers a rich set of features like database access, form handling, user authentication, security and internationalization.
Has good documentation and community support.

Advantages:

High development efficiency with many functional components and tools for quick web app building.
High code maintainability due to good design patterns and coding standards.
High security with comprehensive security features.

Disadvantages:

Steep learning curve for beginners due to its numerous features.
Poor flexibility as its design focuses on rapid development.

Suitable Applications:

Static websites like blogs and news sites.
Dynamic websites such as e — commerce and social networking sites.
Enterprise applications and back — end APIs.

Well — known Apps: Instagram, Pinterest, etc.

FastAPI

FastAPI is a modern, high — performance web framework for building APIs in Python 3.8+ based on type hints. It’s an open — source project built on Starlette and Pydantic, offering powerful features and high — efficiency performance.

Main Features:

High performance with the latest Python features and asynchronous programming.
Concise code for fast development, increasing function development speed by 200% — 300%.
Powerful data validation to reduce errors and generate clear error messages.
Auto — generated interactive API documentation for easy understanding.

Advantages:

Excellent performance by fully utilizing multi — core CPUs with asynchronous programming.
High development efficiency with easy — to — understand and maintain code.
Low error rate with strong data validation.
Rich documentation with auto — generated interactive API docs.

Disadvantages:

Steep learning curve due to its powerful functions.
Immature ecosystem as it’s a relatively new framework.

Suitable Applications: Building various APIs. It’s a great choice for those seeking a fast, easy — to — use and powerful API framework.

Flask

Flask is a lightweight Python web framework. It’s flexible and easy — to — use, suitable for small — to — medium — sized web applications.

Features:

Uses a micro — framework architecture, providing only core services for free expansion and customization.
Utilizes Python’s standard library for quick start.
Has good documentation and community support.

Advantages:

High development efficiency with its micro — framework architecture.
High flexibility as it only offers core services.
Low learning curve with Python’s standard library.

Disadvantages:

Fewer feature sets as it only provides core services.
Poor security as its design emphasizes flexibility.

Suitable Applications:

Static websites like blogs and news sites.
Small e — commerce and social networking sites.
Back — end APIs.

Well — known Apps: Reddit, Twitch, etc.

Django and Flask Comparison

Both Django and Flask are Python web frameworks but have different characteristics. Django is a powerful, flexible and easy — to — use full — stack framework for various web applications. Flask is a flexible and easy — to — use lightweight framework for small — to — medium — sized web applications.

Considerations for Choosing:

Application scale and complexity: Choose Django for large — scale or complex apps, and Flask for small — scale or simple ones.
Developer’s experience level: Beginners can choose Flask for its lower learning curve, while experienced developers can opt for Django for its richer feature set.

Django REST framework

Django REST framework (DRF) is a web API framework built on Django. It provides serialization tools, authentication mechanisms, request authorization, etc., for building high — quality web APIs.

Features:

Supports common API specification frameworks like RESTful and JSON API.
Has built — in serialization components for various data formats.
Offers multiple authentication and permission control methods.
Has built — in view classes and renderers for quick API view creation.
Supports multiple pagination methods.

Advantages:

High flexibility with customizable options.
Powerful serialization components for easy data transfer and validation.
Good security with complete authentication and authorization functions.
Friendly documentation with auto — generated API docs.

Disadvantages:

Steep learning curve compared to some other Python web frameworks.
Somewhat cumbersome functions, requiring careful component selection.

Tornado

Tornado is a Python web application framework from FriendFeed. It supports asynchronous I/O and can handle many concurrent connections.

Features:

High performance with non — blocking I/O for handling thousands of concurrent requests.
Asynchronous I/O using asyncio for better server performance and scalability.
Built — in WebSocket support for real — time apps.
Lightweight with a design minimizing code complexity.
Secure and reliable with multiple security mechanisms.

Advantages:

High performance with non — blocking I/O and asynchronous programming.
WebSocket support for convenient real — time app building.
Secure and reliable with security features.
Lightweight and easy to develop and maintain.

Disadvantages:

Steep learning curve due to new concepts and technologies.
Somewhat single — function, suitable for small — to — medium — sized apps.

Sanic

Sanic is a web framework based on Python 3.6+, asyncio and uvloop, with high performance for handling thousands of concurrent requests. Its API is similar to Flask, but uses an event loop for asynchronous operations.

Advantages:

High performance with asyncio and uvloop for non — blocking I/O.
Asynchronous I/O support using async/await for server improvement.
Flask — like API for easy start and expansion.
Built — in routing and template engine for complete web app building.

Disadvantages:

Relatively small community compared to other frameworks.

aiohttp

aiohttp is an HTTP client/server framework in Python 3.5+ supporting WebSocket, HTTP/2 and SSL/TLS. It uses asyncio for asynchronous I/O and can handle many concurrent requests.

Features:
High performance with asyncio for non — blocking I/O.
Asynchronous I/O support with async/await.
Built — in WebSocket support.
Handles large file uploads and downloads well.
Compatible with Gunicorn and Werkzeug.

Disadvantages:

Steep learning curve compared to some frameworks.
Somewhat cumbersome functions.

Falcon

Falcon is a Python web framework for high — performance APIs, created by Kurt Griffiths and open — sourced in 2014. It aims to be lightweight, efficient and scalable.

Advantages:

Fast with the ability to handle many concurrent requests.
Lightweight with few lines of code and no external dependencies.
Easy to learn and use with simple decorator syntax.
Supports multiple HTTP servers and data serialization formats.

Basic Features:

Small framework with all core functions in one.py file.
Defines routes and request methods with decorators.
Uses context objects for data storage and transfer.
Supports custom middleware and asynchronous programming.

Disadvantages:

Steep learning curve for those new to RESTful APIs.
Limited scalability for complex functions.
Lack of standardization due to small market share.
Fewer dependencies leading to fewer third — party extensions.
Short framework lifecycle with a small community.

Bottle

Advantages:

Extremely small, with only a few hundred lines of code for easy embedding.
Easy to learn and use, no complex configuration required.
Supports multiple HTTP servers and template engines.

Basic Features:

Small framework with all core functions in one.py file.
Defines routes and request methods with decorators.
Uses context objects for data handling.
Supports static file serving and file uploads, and integrates with many databases.

Disadvantages: