Top Alternatives to Django for Web Development

One of the steadily growing popularity frameworks is Django. It has proven to be among the best web development means for developers. And in our development team, it is also a common part of many cases’ tech stacks. Thus, I’ve decided to overview what are the top alternatives to Django on the market and which of them could bring more productivity. 

Let’s have a look at Statista research. They made a sum-up to conclude how the rank for most popular backend frameworks changed throughout the 10 years gap. And as we can see, Django was in the top 5 all the time, aside from 2018. Currently, in 2022 it is recognized as almost the best one among competitors, and I think Django’s worth it. Here are a few reasons why:

• By default, Django applications are protected against common flaws and security threats.
• To create a Django web application, several simple, lightweight apps may be assembled as components.
• Python is the foundation for Django entirely. It rigorously adheres to reusability, duck typing, and other Python great concepts.
• A Django program can be scaled quite easily.
• For simple accessibility, a sophisticated ORM, a template engine, URL routing, and several database schema migrations are offered.
• It provides extensive Django REST framework support for creating RESTful Web APIs.

Now, let’s find out what other frameworks that can easily compete with Django on the tech level.

Top 5 Django Alternatives

According to StachShare, Django has lots of alternative frameworks, including Flask, Rails, Laravel, ExpressJS, Nest.js, Strapi, Spring, and so on. Since lists from different sources are not mutual, I’ve come up with my own rank. 

1. Flask

Flask is a micro web framework built on Python that doesn't need specialized libraries or equipment. Since Flask is built on Werkzeug, Jinja 2, it was created with the greatest of intentions and is designed to get things going very quickly.

Form validation, a database abstraction layer, and other features that depend on external sources are absent from this backend. Flask supports extensions that can add functionality in a way that makes it appear as though they were built into the framework itself. 

Developers like Django because of its rapid development, open source format, and broad community; meanwhile, Flask is preferred because of its lightweight, extra features, and relations to Python. In addition to a number of readily changeable defaults, Flask also includes a number of configuration variables and conventions. In order to guard against vulnerabilities, it also uses widely used security methods such as session-based monitoring, data encryption, HTTP authentication, and cross-site request forgery (CSRF).

2. ExpressJS

Express is a lightweight and adaptable Node.js online application framework that offers a rich feature set for creating single- and multi-page, as well as hybrid web apps. As well as the NoSQL database and the AngularJS frontend framework, Express is a part of the MEAN stack. 

It is used to build APIs and online applications and is considered a standard Node.js server framework. Node.js is a JavaScript backend that supports the full stack.  It is an excellent way to save both time and money.

The V8 JavaScript engine used by Node.js accelerates the conversion of JavaScript-based code to machine code and makes it simpler to implement the code. Generally speaking, Express.js offers several of Node.js's most popular capabilities. And Express allows for speedier web application development than Node.js alone.

3. Nest.js

A framework for creating effective, scalable Node.js server-side applications is called Nest. The open-source NestJS framework for Node.js allows for the development of complex and engaging backend systems. It is presently the TypeScript Node.js framework with the quickest growth.

Scalable, testable, and loosely linked applications are created with NestJS. It greatly sets a new standard for robust Node.js servers. Databases including PostgreSQL, MongoDB, and MySQL are all supported with Nest.js. 

Additionally, about its relations to other frameworks: Nest uses Express. Still, it also offers interoperability with a variety of other libraries, making it simple to employ the countless third-party plugins that are readily accessible. Besides, the Nest application's structure is significantly influenced by Angular. Because of the structure's simplicity, it is possible to focus more on the endpoint and consumer design than on the organization of the program.

4. Laravel

Laravel is a web application framework with expressive and appealing syntax. By streamlining common tasks like authentication, routing, sessions, and caching that is used by the majority of web applications, Laravel seeks to make development simpler.

It provides specialized dependency management and a modular packaging mechanism. Along with offering its customers several methods of accessing relational databases, Laravel also offers application deployment and maintenance tools. Laravel's source code is hosted on GitHub and is available under an MIT license.

5. Ruby on Rails

Some developers believe Ruby on Rails to be the finest performance web framework. Ruby on Rails supports the adoption of internet protocols like XML or JSON as well as CSS, JavaScript, and HTML for transmitting data and UI. A web application framework called Rails comes with everything required to build Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern-compliant web apps that are database-backed.

Ruby on Rails is significantly outperformed by Django in terms of scalability, usability, and security. Django is unquestionably superior for creating case-specific, customized web programs because of its understandable syntax, practical architecture, and vast core libraries. But when it comes to performance and quickness, Ruby on Rails beats Django.

As you can see from the search engine results, the options for Django alternatives are wide enough. Each platform offers its own rank, depending on different criteria. Some of them compare Django with other frameworks as a backend tool; others focus on web development features, and also there are ranks that find alternatives in a narrow Python-based approach. So, it’s better to choose alternatives depending on your tech stack, as well as the functionality of your application. Otherwise, you can go for the most popular option, even though it wouldn’t fit your case.